What Does Acts 6:15 Mean in the King James?
And all that sat in the council, looking stedfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel.
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 messenger’s face carries the message before he speaks.
THE MEANING
A message can be visible before it is spoken: a face can bear what a person carries. Stephen’s face appears like the face of a messenger, making his presence part of the witness.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that witness begins only with spoken words dissolves here: a face can already bear the message.
THE ROOT
ἄγγελος
angelos
GROWS FROM
ἀγγελ-
angel-
Messenger; one who carries or announces a message.
The Greek word translated “angel” names a messenger, and its word family also names a message and good news. The image links Stephen’s face with what he carries: the messenger is recognizable in his visible presence before his speech.
ALSO GROWS
angelia: Message, report, announcement.
ἀγγελία
This branch makes the link between messenger and message explicit: the face itself is read as conveying something.
euangelion: Good news, good message.
εὐαγγέλιον
The messenger’s word family can also name the message announced, tying the person who bears it to what is carried.
THE PATTERN
What a person bears can become visible in the face, making presence itself a witness.
And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him.And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.THE THREAD
But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,The council looks steadfastly at Stephen, and Stephen then looks steadfastly toward heaven; both use ἀτενίζω (atenizō, “gaze intently”). The shared verb turns the gaze around: the face they examine belongs to one whose own attention is fixed beyond them.
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