What Does Acts 2:29 Mean in the King James?
Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day.
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
David’s tomb is both a grave and a memorial, holding his remembered name beside the blunt fact of his death.
THE MEANING
A person can be deeply honored and still be dead and buried; the verse lets reverence and mortality stand together. David’s tomb remains a visible marker of his death and a place where his memory endures.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Honor does not require softening the fact of death; this verse undoes the belief that reverence needs euphemism.
THE ROOT
μνῆμα
mnēma
GROWS FROM
μνη-
mnē-
remembering, remembrance, memorial
“sepulchre” in this verse is mnēma. The Greek word for the tomb belongs to a word family of remembering: the grave is also a memorial. David’s tomb holds a physical trace of his death and keeps his name present in memory.
ALSO GROWS
mnēmē: memory, remembrance
μνήμη
This related word makes the link between the tomb and the memory it preserves visible.
mnēmeion: tomb, monument, memorial
μνημεῖον
This same word family names a grave as a marker that keeps someone remembered.
דָּוִד
Dawid
GROWS FROM
דוד
d-w-d
beloved
David’s name carries the nature of the beloved. The verse holds that tenderness alongside the unsoftened statement that he is dead and buried: being beloved does not make a person exempt from mortality.
ALSO GROWS
dōd: beloved; also kin or uncle in the wider word family
דּוֹד
This root gives David’s name its association with belovedness.
dōdîm: love, caresses
דּוֹדִים
This related form carries the root into the language of affection, deepening the contrast between David’s cherished name and his grave.
THE PATTERN
Resurrection language names death directly and keeps the grave in view instead of covering it with euphemism.
For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.THE THREAD
He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.The next verse makes the purpose of David’s known tomb clearer: his grave grounds the passage’s distinction between David’s death and Christ’s resurrection. The remembered tomb and the claim that Christ’s body did not see corruption sit side by side.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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