What Does Acts 2:23 Mean in the King James?
Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:
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
God’s purpose and human violence meet in the same event, but the verse still calls the human hands lawless.
THE MEANING
When harm is explained as part of a larger purpose, that explanation does not make the hands that inflict it innocent. This verse holds God’s counsel and foreknowledge beside the human act of taking, crucifying, and killing without letting either erase the other.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
If an act falls within God’s purpose, the people who commit it cannot be held responsible.
THE ROOT
ἔκδοτον
ékdoton
GROWS FROM
δίδωμι
didōmi
To give or grant; with ἐκ (ek, out), the word here carries the sense of giving over or surrendering.
The Greek word can be heard as “given over,” making the handoff more visible than English “delivered” alone. The verse places that handoff within God’s counsel, then names the people who act with their hands as lawless.
ALSO GROWS
ekdidōmi: Give out, surrender, or hand over.
ἐκδίδωμι
This is the verb family behind “delivered,” and it makes the transfer into others’ hands explicit.
paradidōmi: Hand over; in some contexts, betray.
παραδίδωμι
This compound shares the root “give” while showing how a handoff can carry a human agent’s betrayal.
ὡρισμένῃ
hōrismenē
GROWS FROM
ὁρίζω
horizō
To mark out, set a boundary, appoint, or determine.
“determinate” in this verse is hōrismenē. The word pictures God’s counsel as marked out or appointed. That appointed purpose stands in the same sentence as the later description of human hands as lawless; the root does not turn those hands into innocent ones.
ALSO GROWS
horos: A boundary or limit.
ὅρος
Its sense of a boundary helps show the underlying picture in “determinate”: something marked out.
proorizō: Determine or appoint beforehand.
προορίζω
This related compound appears in Acts 4:28, where God’s hand and counsel are also joined to what is determined.
ἀνόμων
anomōn
GROWS FROM
νόμος
nomos
Instruction, law, or an established norm; with the privative ἀ- (a-), ἄνομος means without law or instruction.
“wicked” in this verse is anomōn. The Greek identifies the hands as belonging to lawless people, making the human agency explicit. The verse does not let God’s foreknowledge turn their act into an innocent one.
ALSO GROWS
nomos: Instruction, law, or a governing norm.
νόμος
This is the seed word that gives “lawless” its contrast with instruction.
anomia: Lawlessness or disregard for law.
ἀνομία
This related word makes visible the state described by the people whose hands act here.
THE PATTERN
A larger divine purpose does not rename the human act that serves it.
But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.And truly the Son of man goeth, as it was determined: but woe unto that man by whom he is betrayed!THE THREAD
For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.Acts 4:28 uses a compound of the same Greek root as “determinate” and joins it again to God’s hand and counsel. That shared root opens the idea of a purpose marked out, while Acts 2:23 still names the human hands that carry out the violence as lawless.
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