What Does Acts 27:17 Mean in the King James?
Which when they had taken up, they used helps, undergirding the ship; and, fearing lest they should fall into the quicksands, strake sail, and so were driven.
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 ship is girded beneath, yet the final verb says the crew are being carried: support and loss of control coexist.
THE MEANING
This verse meets the reader where careful effort and uncontrollable motion coexist: what can be bound is bound, yet the vessel is still being carried by the storm. Reinforcement and helpless motion occupy the same scene; neither erases the other.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that careful preparation guarantees control dissolves here: they reinforce the ship, yet it is still carried by the storm.
THE ROOT
ἐφέροντο
epheronto
GROWS FROM
φέρω
pherō
to carry, bear, or bring
The root beneath driven means carried or borne, placing the crew in the position of those moved by the storm. English emphasizes force; the Greek also holds the image of a vessel and its people being carried along.
ALSO GROWS
phortion: a load or burden
φορτίον
A φορτίον is what is carried, making the shared root’s sense tangible in the setting of a ship.
prospherō: to bring toward; to offer
προσφέρω
This compound keeps the same carrying root while showing its sense of bringing something toward a destination.
ὑποζωννύντες
hypozonnuntes
GROWS FROM
ζώννυμι
zōnnymi
to gird or fasten around; here, to gird beneath
“undergirding” in this verse is hypozonnuntes. The crew reinforce the ship by girding it underneath, binding support around the vessel. The image of girding sits beside the image of being carried: the ship can be secured even while its course remains beyond their command.
ALSO GROWS
zōnē: a belt or girdle
ζώνη
This noun preserves the concrete girding image that gives undergirding its shape.
anazōnnymi: to gird up or fasten around
ἀναζώννυμι
The same girding root appears in the action of fastening something around oneself.
THE PATTERN
Human measures can brace what is vulnerable without placing the surrounding forces under human command.
They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end.Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the land; but they could not: for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous against them.And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.THE THREAD
And when the ship was caught, and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive.The Greek forms ἐφερόμεθα (epherometha) here and ἐφέροντο (epheronto) in verse 17 both come from φέρω (pherō), to carry or bear; the KJV renders them let her drive and were driven. The nearby verse makes the continuity visible: the crew are carried by the wind, then carried through the danger that follows.
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