What Does Acts 5:30 Mean in the King James?

The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.

Acts 5:30 · KJV

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 same line names human hands as agents of death and God as the one who raises: violence is real, but it cannot have the last word.

THE MEANING

The verse places the human act of killing beside God’s act of raising Jesus. You meet a reality where violence is real, but it does not hold final authority over the one God raises.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

The lie is that whoever can kill also decides the final meaning and end of the life they take.

THE ROOT

ἤγειρεν

ēgeiren

GROWS FROM

ἐγείρω

egeirō

To rouse from sleep or inactivity; to awaken or raise.

The word translated “raised” carries the sense of rousing someone into life or standing. The verse presents God’s act as more than an answer to death: it is a raising that death cannot prevent.

ALSO GROWS

egersis: A raising or resurrection.

ἔγερσις

This noun makes the raising in the verse visible as a movement from death into life.

exegeirō: To raise up or stir up.

ἐξεγείρω

This compound preserves the root’s force of rousing and raising, extending the same action into other settings.

διεχειρίσασθε

diecheirisasthe

GROWS FROM

χείρ

cheir

Hand; the means or agency by which someone acts.

The Greek verb translated “slew” is built on the word for hand, making the killing an act carried out by human agency. Beside God’s raising, that agency is named clearly but shown not to be final.

ALSO GROWS

cheiropoiētos: Made by hand.

χειροποίητος

The same hand-root can name human making; here it marks human action that takes life.

cheiragōgeō: To lead or guide by the hand.

χειραγωγέω

This branch shows the hand as an instrument of directed action, sharpening the contrast with the hands that kill.

ξύλου

xylou

GROWS FROM

ξύλον

xylon

Wood or timber; a tree or an object made of wood.

The word translated “tree” can also name wood as material or a wooden object. The verse holds the execution on wood and God’s raising of the one executed within the same sentence.

ALSO GROWS

xylinos: Wooden; made of wood.

ξύλινος

This branch names wood as material, keeping the instrument of execution concrete.

xylourgos: A woodworker or carpenter.

ξυλουργός

This branch shows the same wood-root in human craft, while the verse names wood as the place of a killing.

THE PATTERN

God’s raising can carry life beyond the violence that brings it down.

The LORD killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up.

1 Samuel 2:6 · KJVThe verse names both descent into the grave and God’s act of bringing up.

O LORD, thou hast brought up my soul from the grave: thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.

Psalm 30:3 · KJVThe speaker is brought up from the grave and kept alive, echoing the movement from death toward God’s raising.

Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

John 2:19 · KJVDestruction is answered by a promised raising, carrying the same pattern of death followed by return to life.

THE THREAD

Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:

Acts 2:23 · KJV

Acts 2:23 names the human agency with the same hand-root: “by wicked hands.” That shared root brings the force of “slew” into focus as an act carried out by people, while Acts 5:30 sets God’s raising against it.

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