What Does Acts 25:26 Mean in the King James?
Of whom I have no certain thing to write unto my lord. Wherefore I have brought him forth before you, and specially before thee, O king Agrippa, that, after examination had, I might have somewhat to write.
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 inquiry begins because the written record is empty: the need for certainty itself puts a person on display.
THE MEANING
When you are under scrutiny, this verse names the pressure to produce a definite account even while the matter remains unclear. An examination can become a search for something to record, not simply a response to a settled charge.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Being examined does not itself establish a charge; the demand for a definite record can arise precisely because no sure account exists yet.
THE ROOT
ἀσφαλής
asphalēs
GROWS FROM
σφαλ-
sphal-
To stumble or fall; with the privative prefix a-, secure, not liable to fall.
“certain” in this verse is asphalēs. The Greek word carries the sense of something that will not slip or fall. There is no firm footing for a written account yet, so the examination becomes an attempt to find something stable enough to record.
ALSO GROWS
asphaleia: Security, safety, certainty
ἀσφάλεια
This related noun shows the same family describing what is secure or sure, the quality Festus lacks for his report.
asphalizō: To secure, make fast
ἀσφαλίζω
The verb gives the family a concrete edge: the search is for something that can hold as a reliable written account.
ἀνάκρισις
anakrisis
GROWS FROM
κρίνω
krinō
To separate, distinguish, decide, or judge.
The Greek word family keeps examination close to the act of sorting and judging. Here the inquiry is still open, yet it is already shaped by the need to find something recordable.
ALSO GROWS
anakrinō: To examine, inquire into, or scrutinize
ἀνακρίνω
This related verb makes the examination in the verse part of a larger act of inquiry and discernment.
krisis: Judgment or decision
κρίσις
The shared root links investigation to judgment, showing that the inquiry sits close to the question of what can be decided.
THE PATTERN
A judgment meant to stand depends on a matter that can actually be established.
One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity, or for any sin, in any sin that he sinneth: at the mouth of two witnesses, or at the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be established.Whom I perceived to be accused of questions of their law, but to have nothing laid to his charge worthy of death or of bonds.Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all.THE THREAD
Said unto them, Ye have brought this man unto me, as one that perverteth the people: and, behold, I, having examined him before you, have found no fault in this man touching those things whereof ye accuse him:Luke uses the same Greek examination word, linking scrutiny with the work of distinguishing what can be charged. In both verses the inquiry meets a gap between accusation and an established account; here, the need for a report presses that inquiry toward something recordable.
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