What Does Acts 27:37 Mean in the King James?
And we were in all in the ship two hundred threescore and sixteen souls.
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 count of 276 “souls” is a count of whole living persons, because Greek holds person and life together in one word.
THE MEANING
You meet a way of seeing each person as a whole living self, not as separate pieces. The number gathers 276 lives into one company aboard the ship.
THE ROOT
ψυχαί
psychai
GROWS FROM
ψυχ
psych
Life, the living self; a person as a whole living being.
Greek uses ψυχή (psychē) for both a living person and that person’s life. Here, “souls” means the people themselves: 276 whole lives counted together.
ALSO GROWS
psychē: Life, self, or living soul.
ψυχή
Acts 27:22 uses this same word for the life that will not be lost, showing that it names both a person counted and the life at stake.
psychikos: Natural, belonging to the living self.
ψυχικός
This related adjective carries the same life-centered language into descriptions of what belongs to the living person.
THE PATTERN
Scripture speaks of a person and the life they carry as one whole.
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man’s life among you, but of the ship.I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.THE THREAD
And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man’s life among you, but of the ship.Acts 27:22 uses this same Greek word for the life that will not be lost. Here, the 276 are not an anonymous total: they are the lives held within that promise.
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