What Does Acts 16:25 Mean in the King James?
And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The song reaches people the verse names as bound while they are still listening inside the cell.
THE MEANING
Confinement does not make your prayer and praise private; the sound can reach people bound near you while the doors remain shut. The listening happens in the midnight itself, before the scene changes.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that a confined season makes your voice meaningless because nobody can hear it.
THE ROOT
ἐπηκροῶντο
epēkroōnto
GROWS FROM
ἐπακροάομαι
epakroaomai
to listen, to give ear attentively
English heard can sound as though the prisoners merely caught a noise, but this verb describes them listening. Their bonds remain in place, yet the song is received: confinement marks where they are, not what can reach them.
ALSO GROWS
akroatēs: hearer, listener
ἀκροατής
This related word names someone who listens, bringing out the attention implied by the prisoners’ response.
akroasis: hearing, listening
ἀκρόασις
This related noun describes the act of listening, showing that the verse depicts more than sound passing by.
δέσμιοι
desmioi
GROWS FROM
δέω
deō
to bind, fasten
“prisoners” in this verse is desmioi. The Greek noun pictures these people as bound ones, making their constraint explicit. Still, their moment is not only one of bonds: they are listening while the bonds remain.
ALSO GROWS
desmos: bond, chain
δεσμός
The shared binding idea makes the prisoners’ condition concrete: they listen while still bound.
desmōtērion: prison, place of confinement
δεσμωτήριον
This related word names the place of binding, linking the people who listen to the confinement around them.
THE PATTERN
Prayer and song can remain present in the night and pass from one person into another.
But none saith, Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night;Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.THE THREAD
Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;The word translated sang praises in Acts belongs to the same Greek word family as hymns here. Ephesians makes the shared nature of the sound explicit: songs move among people, as the prisoners’ listening shows.
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