What Does Acts 5:39 Mean in the King James?
But if it be of God, ye can not overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.
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
What is from God cannot be dismantled; resistance may reveal the resister’s position toward God.
THE MEANING
The decisive question before you is where a work comes from: if it is of God, you cannot bring it to an end. Resistance then risks placing you among those who fight against God. The verse leaves the source open while making the stakes of resistance clear.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that forceful opposition can prove a work false or make it disappear; if its source is God, resistance may instead expose the resister’s position.
THE ROOT
καταλῦσαι
katalysai
GROWS FROM
λύω
luō
To loosen or untie; by extension, to undo or dissolve.
The word translated “overthrow” contains the idea of loosening something until it comes apart. If the work is from God, no attempt to undo it can finally dismantle it.
ALSO GROWS
apolýō: Release or dismiss.
ἀπολύω
The same root describes setting someone loose, showing how λύω carries the sense of undoing a bond.
lýtron: Ransom, a price of release.
λύτρον
This related word names what secures release from captivity, extending the root’s image of being loosed.
θεομάχοι
theomachoi
GROWS FROM
μάχομαι
machomai
To fight or contend.
“fight against God” in this verse is theomachoi. The Greek compound names people as “God-fighters”: the conflict is directed against God, not merely against a human group. Since the root can also describe contention or dispute, the warning reaches beyond physical force.
ALSO GROWS
mákhomai: Fight or quarrel.
μάχομαι
The base verb makes clear that the phrase describes active contention.
mákhē: Fight or dispute.
μάχη
This related noun can describe conflict in speech as well as combat, widening the image of opposition.
THE PATTERN
What comes from God cannot be finally dismantled by opposition, while opposition to it can become opposition to God.
The LORD bringeth the counsel of the heathen to nought: he maketh the devices of the people of none effect.Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us.And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.THE THREAD
If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;“Overthrow” translates καταλύω (katalyō), built on λύω (luō), meaning to loosen or undo; John uses a form of that same verb when he says Scripture cannot be “broken.” The shared image links the attempted dismantling of God’s work with the impossibility of undoing what God has spoken.
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