What Does Acts 17:15 Mean in the King James?
And they that conducted Paul brought him unto Athens: and receiving a commandment unto Silas and Timotheus for to come to him with all speed, they departed.
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
Here, a message is not an abstraction: the Greek word for receiving also carries the sense of taking hold, so instruction becomes something people carry across distance.
THE MEANING
One group brings Paul to Athens, then carries an instruction meant to draw Silas and Timothy toward him. The verse shows care moving across distance through people who accompany one another and carry a message.
THE ROOT
λαβόντες
labontes
GROWS FROM
λαβ-
lab-
This three-letter Greek stem belongs to λαμβάνω (lambanō), meaning “to take” or “receive”; its forms include λαβ-.
The word keeps the physical image of taking hold visible beneath the familiar “receiving.” Related words can mean taking someone along or grasping something, so the instruction is something the group takes up and carries onward.
ALSO GROWS
lambanō: to take, receive
λαμβάνω
This is the verb behind “receiving” here: the instruction is taken up by the people escorting Paul.
paralambanō: to receive, take along
παραλαμβάνω
This compound adds the sense of taking something or someone along, echoing the passage’s movement of people and message.
katalambanō: to seize, grasp, apprehend
καταλαμβάνω
This compound appears as “apprehend” in Philippians 3:12, showing how the same root can describe taking hold.
THE PATTERN
A message or commission travels through people and becomes movement across distance.
And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean.After these things the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two and two before his face into every city and place, whither he himself would come.So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Seleucia; and from thence they sailed to Cyprus.THE THREAD
Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.Acts uses λαβόντες (labontes, “receiving”), from λαβ- (lab-, “take or receive”); Philippians uses “apprehend” for a compound built from the same root. One verse pictures people taking up an instruction, the other describes Paul being taken hold of by Christ Jesus.
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