What Does Acts 26:18 Mean in the King James?
To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.
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 forgiveness in this verse is release inside a whole passage from darkness’s authority into God’s light and shared inheritance.
THE MEANING
Your eyes open as you are turned from darkness to light and from the Adversary’s power to God. You receive release from your missings, and a place among those set apart through trust in me. Release and belonging arrive together in this movement.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that your failures leave you permanently outside the inheritance: the verse places release and belonging together.
THE ROOT
ἄφεσιν
aphesin
GROWS FROM
ἀφίημι
aphiēmi
Send away; let go; release.
The word translated “forgiveness” belongs to a family that means letting go or releasing. Here, release sits within the turn from darkness’s power to God, and opens into shared inheritance.
ALSO GROWS
aphiēmi: Let go, send away, release; also forgive.
ἀφίημι
This verb makes forgiveness an act of release, not only a changed judgment about what happened.
aphesis: Release or liberty.
ἄφεσις
The same noun names release in Luke 4:18, where it appears alongside opened sight.
ἁμαρτιῶν
hamartiōn
GROWS FROM
ἁμαρταν-
hamartan-
Miss; fail to reach.
“sins” in this verse is hamartiōn. The verse joins release to the missings themselves. What is released no longer defines the reader’s place: the sentence moves on to inheritance among those set apart.
ALSO GROWS
hamartanō: Miss; fail to reach.
ἁμαρτάνω
The verb behind this word keeps the sense of a miss inside the English “sins.”
hamartōlos: One characterized as a sinner or one who misses.
ἁμαρτωλός
This related word shows how a miss can become an identity; here, release and inheritance describe a different standing.
ἡγιασμένοις
hēgiasmenois
GROWS FROM
ἅγιος
hagios
Set apart.
“sanctified” in this verse is hēgiasmenois. The inheritance is shared among people set apart through trust in me. “Set apart” names a belonging and distinction, not a prize earned by getting everything right.
ALSO GROWS
hagios: Set apart.
ἅγιος
This is the adjective in the same word family and makes the quality of the people explicit.
hagiasmos: Setting apart; consecration.
ἁγιασμός
This related noun names the setting-apart that the verse describes as already present among those who share the inheritance.
THE PATTERN
Deliverance opens sight and moves people out of darkness’s power into light, release, and shared belonging.
To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:THE THREAD
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,The Greek word translated “forgiveness” in Acts 26:18, aphesis, also means “release” and appears twice in Luke 4:18 as “deliverance” and “liberty.” Luke places that release beside recovery of sight, opening the same connection between forgiveness and a move out of darkness.
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