What Does Acts 2:45 Mean in the King James?
And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.
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
What is possessed leaves the closed fist of ownership and becomes shares measured by each person’s need.
THE MEANING
What is held moves into shared reach, and each person’s portion answers that person’s need. The verse shows sufficiency taking shape through distribution, with need setting the measure.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that fairness always means identical shares: here, each person’s need determines the measure.
THE ROOT
διεμέριζον
diemerizon
GROWS FROM
μερίζω
merizō
To divide into portions or assign shares.
The verb διεμέριζον (diemerizon, “they distributed”) grows from μερίζω (merizō, “divide into portions”). “Parted” can suggest separation; this word family carries the sense of forming shares, and the verse names each person’s need as the measure.
ALSO GROWS
meris: A share or portion.
μέρις
The distribution turns possessions into portions available to others.
merismos: A division or distribution.
μερισμός
This branch makes the action more than separation: what is held becomes apportioned among people.
χρείαν
chreian
GROWS FROM
χρεία
chreia
Need, necessity, or what is required.
The verse makes need the criterion for distribution, rather than assuming every person requires the same amount. The shared resources answer a concrete lack in each person’s life.
ALSO GROWS
chrēizō: To need or require.
χρῄζω
This related verb keeps the focus on what a person actually requires.
achreios: Useless or unprofitable.
ἀχρεῖος
The related word-family also measures usefulness by whether something can meet a need.
THE PATTERN
Resources move toward shared sufficiency when distribution answers actual need.
If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land which the LORD thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother:And laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality:THE THREAD
And laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.Acts 4:35 repeats the same word for “need,” χρεία (chreia), used in Acts 2:45. The shared word keeps the measure concrete: distribution answers what each person needs.
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