What Does Acts 19:27 Mean in the King James?
So that not only this our craft is in danger to be set at nought; but also that the temple of the great goddess Diana should be despised, and her magnificence should be destroyed, whom all Asia and the world worshippeth.
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
A thing’s public sacredness and the livelihood built around it can rise or fall on the same act of collective valuation.
THE MEANING
Here, livelihood and public reverence move together: when the temple is counted as nothing, the craft tied to it appears endangered by the same loss of standing. Even magnificence honored across a world is described as something that can be brought down.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that universal reverence makes something untouchable; the verse places the whole world’s worship beside the possibility that the temple is counted as nothing.
THE ROOT
λογισθῆναι
logisthēnai
GROWS FROM
λογίζομαι (logizomai), λογ-
Reckon, count, account.
“despised / be counted as nothing” in this verse is logisthēnai. The phrase carries an accounting image: the temple is reckoned as nothing. The threat is a public judgment of worth, placed beside the threatened livelihood of the craft.
ALSO GROWS
logizomai: Reckon, count, consider.
λογίζομαι
This verb makes the temple’s dismissal a judgment of value: it is accounted as nothing.
logismos: Reckoning, calculation, thought.
λογισμός
The same word family can name a reckoning or a thought, showing how the threat takes shape as an assessment of worth.
καθαιρεῖσθαι
kathaireisthai
GROWS FROM
καθαιρέω
kathaireō
Take down, overthrow, demolish.
“destroyed” in this verse is kathaireisthai. The magnificence is pictured as something that can be taken down. The same Greek verb describes lowering the mighty and pulling down strongholds, linking public greatness with the possibility of its removal.
ALSO GROWS
katheilen: Put down, brought low; a form of καθαιρέω (kathaireō).
καθεῖλεν
Luke 1:52 uses this form for putting the mighty down from their seats, echoing the threatened lowering of the goddess’s magnificence.
kathairesis: Pulling down, demolition.
καθαίρεσις
In 2 Corinthians 10:4, this related noun describes the pulling down of strongholds, carrying the same removal image into another kind of structure.
THE PATTERN
What a crowd magnifies can still be counted as nothing or brought down.
The LORD maketh poor, and maketh rich: he bringeth low, and lifteth up.He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)THE THREAD
He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.Acts 19:27 uses καθαιρεῖσθαι (kathaireisthai, “to be taken down”) for the threatened destruction of the goddess’s magnificence; Luke 1:52 uses καθεῖλεν (katheilen, “put down”), a form of the same verb καθαιρέω (kathaireō, “take down”). The shared root makes the lowering of public greatness a recurring image, and Luke states that descent directly.
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