What Does Acts 2:37 Mean in the King James?
Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?
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 message does not merely inform them; it pierces the heart until their first response is a question about what comes next.
THE MEANING
When a message truly reaches you, it can move past agreement or disagreement and pierce the heart. The question “What shall we do?” rises when hearing becomes inward movement: what you have heard is already changing the question you live with. The verse holds this moment before any answer, where impact has become openness to a next step.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that hearing can leave the hearer untouched: here, what is heard reaches the heart and changes the question.
THE ROOT
κατενύγησαν
katenygēsan
GROWS FROM
νύσσω
nyssō
to prick or pierce
English “pricked” can sound like a figurative jolt, but the underlying image is a piercing or sting that reaches inward. The compound verb intensifies the prick, so the response begins as an impact in the heart before it becomes a spoken question.
ALSO GROWS
nyssō: to prick or pierce
νύσσω
This verb is the seed inside the verse’s compound verb, making the inward impact physical in its image.
katanyssō: to pierce or sting deeply
κατανύσσω
This compounded form carries the prick inward with force, illuminating how the hearers’ response begins within them.
ἀκούσαντες
akousantes
GROWS FROM
ἀκου-
akou-
to hear or listen
English can make “heard” sound like passive intake, but this word family includes both hearing and the report received, and extends into responsive listening. Their question shows the moment sound becomes something that presses for an answer.
ALSO GROWS
akoē: hearing; a report
ἀκοή
The same seed names both the act of hearing and what is heard, tracing the passage from sound into reception.
hypakoē: obedience; responsive listening
ὑπακοή
This related word carries hearing into response, echoing the listeners’ immediate question about what to do.
THE PATTERN
A word fully heard penetrates inward and brings a response to the surface.
Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, all my words that I shall speak unto thee receive in thine heart, and hear with thine ears.For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.THE THREAD
So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.The word rendered “hearing” belongs to the same Greek root ἀκου- (akou-, hearing) traced in Acts. Romans shows hearing as the channel through which trust arises, opening the question in Acts as the beginning of a response taking shape.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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