What Does Acts 17:22 Mean in the King James?
Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars’ hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.
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
Your life can be intensely oriented toward the divine even while what you are reaching toward remains unnamed.
THE MEANING
Your attention already gathers around what you regard as sacred. Reverence and uncertainty can stand together: the desire to honor the divine can be real even when its nature remains unrecognized.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that sincere reverence means you already understand what you are reaching toward.
THE ROOT
δεισιδαιμονεστέρους
deisidaimonesterous
GROWS FROM
δεισιδαιμον-
deisidaimon-
A compound stem naming fear or reverence toward divine powers.
“too superstitious” in this verse is deisidaimonesterous. The word can carry reverence for divine powers as well as superstitious fear. It recognizes a life already turned toward the sacred, even where its object remains unknown.
ALSO GROWS
deisidaimonia: Religious devotion or superstition.
δεισιδαιμονία
This related noun appears in Acts 25:19, where the same word family describes religious questions.
daimonia: Divine beings or spirits; rendered “gods” in Acts 17:18.
δαιμόνια
It shares the compound’s element for divine powers, showing what the reverence in this word is directed toward.
THE PATTERN
Human devotion always takes a direction: what receives the whole heart is what a person treats as divine.
And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.THE THREAD
But had certain questions against him of their own superstition, and of one Jesus, which was dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive.The word translated “superstition” here is the noun form in the same Greek word family as “too superstitious” in Acts 17:22. Its use for religious questions lets the earlier phrase hold both shades at once: devotion toward the divine, and uncertainty about what is divine.
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