What Does Acts 4:2 Mean in the King James?
Being grieved that they taught the people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead.
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
Acts uses the word for a standing up when it names resurrection: death is a place the living can rise out of, not the final posture.
THE MEANING
This verse speaks now wherever a life or future has been called finished: in Jesus, the dead are named as those who can stand again. It holds resistance alongside that announcement, showing how words that open new life can disturb the present order.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that death has the final word: the message here names a rising out from among the dead in Jesus.
THE ROOT
ἀνάστασιν
anastasin
GROWS FROM
στα
στα (sta): stand; be set upright.
The word carries the act of standing in its own form: resurrection is a standing up, not a vague survival. Paired with “from the dead,” it names a rising out from among the dead.
ALSO GROWS
anistēmi: to stand up, rise
ἀνίστημι
This verb shares the standing root and makes the movement inside “resurrection” visible.
stasis: a standing, position, or uprising
στάσις
This related form shows the same root describing a stance or rising.
יֵשׁוּעַ
Yeshua
GROWS FROM
ישע
ישע (yashaʿ): deliver; bring out of constriction into spaciousness.
The name Jesus comes through Greek from Hebrew Yeshua, built from the root of deliverance. The verse places resurrection within that name’s nature: standing up from among the dead is deliverance itself.
ALSO GROWS
yashaʿ: to deliver, rescue, bring out of distress
יָשַׁע
This verb shares the name’s root and shows the movement of deliverance carried in Yeshua.
yeshuʿah: deliverance, rescue
יְשׁוּעָה
This noun names the same root movement as an outcome, connecting the name to the resurrection announced here.
καταγγέλλειν
katangellein
GROWS FROM
ἀγγελ
ἀγγελ (angel): announce; carry a report.
“preached” in this verse is katangellein. The verb for preaching belongs to the same word family as messenger and message: this is an announcement carried into public hearing. Its content here is resurrection, and its setting is Jesus.
ALSO GROWS
angéllō: to announce, report
ἀγγέλλω
This verb shares the root and shows that preaching is an act of announcement.
ángelos: messenger
ἄγγελος
This related noun names one who carries an announcement, illuminating the public proclamation in the verse.
THE PATTERN
Resurrection is pictured as a standing-up that carries the dead into renewed life.
So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.THE THREAD
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:John uses the same Greek noun ἀνάστασις (anastasis, “standing up”) when Jesus names himself the resurrection. Acts names resurrection as the message proclaimed in Jesus; John joins the message and its source in the same word.
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