What Does Acts 16:3 Mean in the King James?
Him would Paul have to go forth with him; and took and circumcised him because of the Jews which were in those quarters: for they knew all that his father was a Greek.
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 cut is made because the community knows Timothy’s father is Greek: here a person’s publicly read identity shapes what happens to his body.
THE MEANING
The verse names the Greekness of Timothy’s father as the reason Paul circumcises him. The bodily mark is not abstract here: it is an action taken in response to what the surrounding Jewish community knows about Timothy’s family.
THE ROOT
περιέτεμεν
perietemen
GROWS FROM
τέμνω (temnō), with περί (peri, around)
τέμνω (temnō) means to cut; περί (peri) means around. Together, περιτέμνω (peritemnō) means to cut around.
“circumcised” in this verse is perietemen. English can make circumcision sound like a settled category, while the Greek verb keeps the physical action in view: a cutting around. That concreteness makes the verse’s stated reason sharper, the community’s knowledge leads to an act upon Timothy’s body.
ALSO GROWS
peritomē: circumcision; a cutting around
περιτομή
This noun comes from the same compound and names the bodily mark as an act of cutting around.
apotemnō: cut off
ἀποτέμνω
This compound uses the same cutting root with ἀπό (apo, off or away), showing how the root retains the physical act of cutting across different compounds.
tomē: a cut or incision
τομή
This related noun keeps the cut itself visible beneath the more familiar religious term.
THE PATTERN
A bodily sign can mark a covenant without becoming the measure of a person’s standing.
And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.Is any man called being circumcised? let him not become uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcised.For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.THE THREAD
And certain men which came down from Judæa taught the brethren, and said, Except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved.Acts 15:1 uses the same Greek cutting word and makes circumcision a condition for deliverance; here, Paul acts because the local Jewish community knows Timothy’s father is Greek. The shared root brings the difference into view: the same bodily act can be demanded as a gateway or taken up in response to a social boundary.
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