What Does Acts 28:21 Mean in the King James?
And they said unto him, We neither received letters out of Judæa concerning thee, neither any of the brethren that came shewed or spake any harm of thee.
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
A charge reaches a room through a channel, and here both the written and spoken channels are empty.
THE MEANING
When your name is under discussion, this verse makes the channels visible: no written message has arrived, and no visiting voice has spoken evil about you. That absence is real, even though silence alone does not prove every claim true or false.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that everyone has already heard the worst about you is not always true; a room may have received no report at all.
THE ROOT
πονηρόν
ponēron
GROWS FROM
πονηρός (ponēros; stem πονηρ-)
Evil, bad, or morally harmful.
The Greek phrase means “anything evil concerning you,” so “harm” reaches beyond physical injury to include a damaging report or accusation. The verse says no such evil has reached them by either a letter or a spoken report.
ALSO GROWS
ponēria: Wickedness, evil.
πονηρία
This related form names evil as a quality or practice, showing that the report in question can carry a moral charge.
ponēros: Evil, bad; sometimes an evil person.
πονηρός
The same word family can describe the character of a person or thing, as well as the harmful content reported about someone.
γραμμάτων
grammátōn
GROWS FROM
γράφω
graphō
Write, mark, or inscribe.
The Greek word for “letters” means written things, from the word for writing or inscribing. Set beside the spoken report, it shows that a reputation can arrive as a document or a voice, and here neither carries an accusation.
ALSO GROWS
graphē: Writing; scripture.
γραφή
This branch names writing as a record or text, linking the verse’s “letters” to the wider written word.
epigraphē: Inscription; title.
ἐπιγραφή
An inscription is writing fixed in a visible place, another form of a message carried through the write-root.
THE PATTERN
A claim about a person depends on testimony carried through words, and judgment can outrun what has actually been heard.
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.He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him.Doth our law judge any man, before it hear him, and know what he doeth?THE THREAD
But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.Acts uses γραμμάτων (grammátōn, “letters”), and Romans uses the same word family in “the letter.” The shared root opens a distinction: a written record can carry claims about you, but what is inward is not exhausted by what a letter says.
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