What Does Acts 21:33 Mean in the King James?
Then the chief captain came near, and took him, and commanded him to be bound with two chains; and demanded who he was, and what he had done.
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 chains arrive before the answers.
THE MEANING
When force arrives before understanding, a person can be restrained while who they are and what they have done remain unestablished. The questions come after the chains; restraint itself does not answer them.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being bound means guilt has already been proven.
THE ROOT
δεθῆναι
dethēnai
GROWS FROM
δέω (deō; δε-)
To bind, tie, or fasten.
The same verb appears in Acts 20:22, where Paul is “bound in the spirit” (πνεῦμα, pneuma: breath); that bond is not iron. The verb can hold physical restraint and nonphysical binding together, while these two chains remain literal coercion.
ALSO GROWS
desmos: A bond or fetter.
δεσμός
A bond is the restraint made by binding, giving the chains here a form beyond the act of fastening.
desmios: A person held in bonds; a prisoner.
δέσμιος
This branch names the person through the binding imposed on them, echoing the captain’s restraint of Paul.
dedemenos: Having been bound; bound.
δεδεμένος
This form of the same verb describes Paul in Acts 20:22, where the bond is expressed without iron chains.
THE PATTERN
Binding can mean bodily restraint or a bond carried without iron.
Whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was laid in iron:And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains: and the keepers before the door kept the prison.And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there:THE THREAD
And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there:Both verses use forms of δέω (deō, to bind): here, the captain commands iron chains; there, Paul describes himself as bound in the spirit (πνεῦμα, pneuma, breath). The shared word opens binding beyond bodily restraint, while the chains here still name coercion.
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