What Does Acts 5:5 Mean in the King James?
And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things.
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 Greek names Ananias’s death as the ending of life itself, and that death turns one person’s collapse into communal fear.
THE MEANING
You see Ananias hear the words, fall, and die; the verse does not soften his death into a metaphor. His death reaches every hearer as great fear, binding one person’s collapse to the whole community’s response.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a sacred appearance can make deliberate deceit harmless.
THE ROOT
ἐξέψυξεν
exepsyxen
GROWS FROM
ψυχ-
psych-
Living soul; life
“gave up the ghost” in this verse is exepsyxen. The familiar phrase carries a concrete root: the Greek verb is formed from ψυχή (psychē, “living soul; life”) and speaks of that life expiring. The same root names life still present in Acts 20:10, holding life and its ending in one seed.
ALSO GROWS
ekpsychō: Expire; give up life
ἐκψύχω
This is the verb behind “gave up the ghost,” naming Ananias’s death as the end of living life.
psychē: Living soul; life
ψυχή
Acts 20:10 uses this same word for the life still in a fallen man, revealing the root’s link to life present and life ended.
THE PATTERN
When danger or divine power becomes public, fear can spread from one event through an entire community.
And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things.And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified.And he took a yoke of oxen, and hewed them in pieces, and sent them throughout all the coasts of Israel by the hands of messengers, saying, Whosoever cometh not forth after Saul and after Samuel, so shall it be done unto his oxen. And the fear of the LORD fell on the people, and they came out with one consent.THE THREAD
And Paul went down, and fell on him, and embracing him said, Trouble not yourselves; for his life is in him.Both verses use the ψυχ- (psych-, “living soul; life”) root: here Ananias’s life expires, while there the fallen man’s life is still in him. The shared root makes the contrast between death and life unmistakable.
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