What Does Acts 19:35 Mean in the King James?
And when the townclerk had appeased the people, he said, Ye men of Ephesus, what man is there that knoweth not how that the city of the Ephesians is a worshipper of the great goddess Diana, and of the image which fell down from Jupiter?
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 clerk quiets the crowd by invoking civic certainty, while the Greek compresses the image’s descent from Zeus into the epithet Zeus-fallen.
THE MEANING
A crowd can be calmed when shared sacred claims are named as things everyone knows. The verse identifies Ephesus as keeper of Artemis’s temple and describes the image as fallen from Zeus. Common recognition can shape what a community treats as sacred.
THE ROOT
τοῦ διοπετοῦς
tou diopetous
GROWS FROM
Dios + pet-/pipt- (Διός + πετ-/πιπτ-)
Of the one said to have fallen from Zeus; the compound names Zeus as source and falling as the action.
“the image which fell down from Jupiter” in this verse is tou diopetous. The Greek phrase is the Zeus-fallen one, putting divine source and descent into a single epithet. The KJV opens that compressed claim into the phrase about an image falling from Jupiter, so the city’s shared knowledge includes an asserted origin.
ALSO GROWS
Dios: of Zeus
Διός
Names the divine source claimed for the image.
piptō: fall
πίπτω
Supplies the descent carried by the epithet.
νεωκόρον
neōkoron
GROWS FROM
neōs + koreō (νεώς + κορέω)
Temple-keeper or custodian, traditionally associated with tending or sweeping a temple.
Alongside worshipper, the Greek title carries the concrete civic sense of temple-keeper. The city is identified through the sanctuary it tends and represents.
ALSO GROWS
neōs: temple, sanctuary
νεώς
Locates the title in the care of a particular sacred place.
koreō: sweep, tend
κορέω
Contributes the image of attending to the sanctuary.
γινώσκει
ginōskei
GROWS FROM
γινωσκ-
ginōsk-
Know, recognize, perceive; the word can carry knowing by encounter.
“knoweth” in this verse is ginōskei. Here the verb is framed as knowledge no person could lack: the city’s religious identity and the image’s origin are treated as common recognition. The wording makes shared certainty part of what quiets the crowd.
ALSO GROWS
gnōsis: knowledge
γνῶσις
Shows the same word family as a noun for knowing.
gnōstos: known, recognized
γνωστός
Carries the related sense of something recognized or familiar.
THE PATTERN
Public order gathers around shared claims about what is sacred and commonly known.
And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.Therefore at that time, when all the people heard the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and all kinds of musick, all the people, the nations, and the languages, fell down and worshipped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up.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
And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.Both passages use γινώσκω (ginōskō), to know or perceive. Acts presents the image’s origin as something everyone knows; John turns the same verb toward knowing the only true God and Jesus, opening a distinction between civic recognition and encounter.
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