What Does Acts 5:24 Mean in the King James?
Now when the high priest and the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these things, they doubted of them whereunto this would grow.
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
Their authority reaches its limit at a question they cannot answer: what will this become?
THE MEANING
When an event resists your settled explanations, even people accustomed to interpreting and directing events can be left at a loss. Their question is what this may become. The verse leaves that future unresolved.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The claim that authority always knows what an event will become dissolves here: these leaders hear the report and cannot see its outcome.
THE ROOT
διηπόρουν
diēporoun
GROWS FROM
πορ (por-, from πόρος)
Passage, a way through.
“doubted” in this verse is diēporoun. The word carries more than uncertainty: its family pictures the absence of a passage, an impasse. Their bewilderment centers on what the event will become, as they struggle to find a way through what they cannot explain.
ALSO GROWS
poros: Passage, crossing, or way through.
πόρος
It gives the word family its image of a route that can be found, or blocked.
aporia: Perplexity; an impasse or lack of a way through.
ἀπορία
It makes clear that their uncertainty is an inability to find a path through the question.
diaporeō: To be thoroughly perplexed or at a loss.
διαπορέω
This is the verb behind their response: they cannot discern where the event leads.
γένοιτο
genoito
GROWS FROM
γεν/γιν (gen-/gin-, from γίνομαι)
Become, come into being.
“grow” in this verse is genoito. The question concerns what may come to be. That brings the unknown outcome into focus: they cannot yet tell what this event will become.
ALSO GROWS
ginomai: To become, happen, or come into being.
γίνομαι
It is the verb behind the question about the event’s possible outcome.
genesis: Birth, origin, or coming into being.
γένεσις
It echoes the focus on what is coming into existence.
genos: Kind, stock, or lineage.
γένος
It names what something becomes part of or belongs to as it takes shape.
THE PATTERN
When an event exceeds the available path of explanation, even established authority is left asking what can come of it.
And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments:He taketh away the heart of the chief of the people of the earth, and causeth them to wander in a wilderness where there is no way.THE THREAD
And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?The crowd uses the same Greek verb for being at a loss: in both verses, people confront an event they cannot yet make sense of. Acts 5 sharpens the question from what does this mean to what will this become?
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