What Does Acts 20:37 Mean in the King James?
And they all wept sore, and fell on Paul’s neck, and kissed him,
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 farewell becomes an embrace: the same bodily gesture scripture gives to reunion carries the pain of separation here.
THE MEANING
Grief moves through the body: tears, an embrace, a kiss. This goodbye lets affection be seen and felt when words cannot carry it alone.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that love must stay composed at goodbye: here, everyone weeps and embraces openly.
THE ROOT
κατεφίλουν
katephiloun
GROWS FROM
φιλέω
To love or regard with affection.
The verb means more than a formal farewell kiss: it gives affection a physical form, and its imperfect tense presents the kissing as continuing. English “kissed” can hide the connection between this gesture and the language of friendship and love.
ALSO GROWS
philos: Friend; beloved.
φίλος
The shared stem ties the kiss to personal affection and closeness.
philēma: A kiss.
φίλημα
This noun names the same affection as an embodied gesture.
THE PATTERN
When separation or return reaches its limit, affection becomes bodily in tears, a neck-embrace, and a kiss.
And he fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck.And Joseph made ready his chariot, and went up to meet Israel his father, to Goshen, and presented himself unto him; and he fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a good while.And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.THE THREAD
And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.Luke uses the same Greek verb for “kissed” and nearly the same sequence: falling on the neck, then kissing. Acts gives that closeness to a painful farewell; Luke gives it to a return, showing affection in both separation and reunion.
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