What Does Acts 3:10 Mean in the King James?
And they knew that it was he which sat for alms at the Beautiful gate of the temple: and they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him.
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 astonishing part is that the healed man is still unmistakably the person they knew at the gate.
THE MEANING
The people recognize the man by where he sat, and that same familiar person now confronts them with a change they cannot explain away. His past condition remains part of what they know, but it does not contain all that is true of him now.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
You can only ever be known as the need or limitation others remember.
THE ROOT
ἐπεγίνωσκον
epeginōskon
GROWS FROM
γινώσκω
ginōskō
To know or recognize through acquaintance and perception.
“knew, recognized” in this verse is epeginōskon. The verb carries the sense of recognizing someone they already know, not merely noticing a stranger. Their memory of him at the gate meets the person standing before them now.
ALSO GROWS
ginōskō: Know, perceive.
γινώσκω
This is the underlying verb: their recognition rests on knowing the man from before.
gnōsis: Knowledge, knowing.
γνῶσις
It shares the same word family, linking recognition to knowledge gained through contact.
epignōsis: Recognition, fuller knowledge.
ἐπίγνωσις
This related form echoes the moment when what they know of him meets the new reality they see.
ἐκστάσεως
ekstaseōs
GROWS FROM
ἵστημι
histēmi
Stand; with ἐκ (ek), the compound evokes standing outside or being displaced from one’s usual position.
The Greek word for amazement carries an image of being thrown out of one’s ordinary stance. The crowd’s familiar picture of the man can no longer hold what they are seeing.
ALSO GROWS
histēmi: Stand, set in place.
ἵστημι
This is the verbal root within the word’s image of a position being unsettled.
existēmi: Displace; amaze or be beside oneself.
ἐξίστημι
This related verb shows the movement from an established position into astonishment.
stasis: A standing, position.
στάσις
It makes the word’s image concrete: their settled understanding is displaced by what has happened.
THE PATTERN
A changed condition becomes undeniable when others recognize the same person beyond the state by which they knew them.
And it came to pass, when all that knew him beforetime saw that, behold, he prophesied among the prophets, then the people said one to another, What is this that is come unto the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?The neighbours therefore, and they which before had seen him that he was blind, said, Is not this he that sat and begged? Some said, This is he: others said, He is like him: but he said, I am he.Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.THE THREAD
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.Acts 4:13 uses the same Greek verb, ἐπιγινώσκω (epiginōskō): the council recognizes Peter and John by their association with Jesus. Here the crowd recognizes the healed man against the memory of his place at the gate; in both scenes, recognition joins familiar sight to a newly visible truth.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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