What Does Acts 7:11 Mean in the King James?
Now there came a dearth over all the land of Egypt and Chanaan, and great affliction: and our fathers found no sustenance.
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 word translated “sustenance” carries the image of feeding and filling, so the crisis is that nothing can fill the hungry body.
THE MEANING
When scarcity covers every place you turn, even a serious search can come up empty. The verse names that pressure plainly: no food can be found to fill the body.
THE ROOT
χορτάσματα
chortasmata
GROWS FROM
χορτ-
chort-
grass or fodder, then food that feeds and fills
Beneath the English word “sustenance” is a concrete image of food and feeding. The root’s branches carry both pasture and the act of being filled, so the verse’s lack reaches down to the body’s most basic nourishment.
ALSO GROWS
chortos: grass or fodder
χόρτος
This branch connects nourishment to the vegetation that can be food for a body.
chortazō: feed, satisfy, fill
χορτάζω
This branch reveals the measure of what is missing: food that can actually satisfy hunger.
θλῖψις
thlipsis
GROWS FROM
θλιβ-
thlib-
to press or squeeze
The word for affliction carries the feel of pressure, as though circumstances are closing in. Beside the absence of food, this is more than inconvenience: the whole situation bears down on those searching for provision.
ALSO GROWS
thlibō: press, squeeze, distress
θλίβω
The verb gives the pressure beneath the noun translated “affliction.”
thlipsis: pressure, affliction
θλῖψις
This is the verse’s word for the great pressure accompanying the famine.
מִצְרַיִם
Mitzrayim
GROWS FROM
צָרַר
tsarar
bind in, press, constrict; the name is heard through צַר (tzar, narrow) with the twofold ending -ַיִם
The Hebrew name Mitzrayim carries the image of tzar, narrowness, doubled. With famine reaching Egypt as well as Canaan, the verse holds scarcity and constriction together: the land itself offers no escape from the pressure.
ALSO GROWS
tzar: narrow, tight
צַר
This is the narrowness heard within the name Mitzrayim.
metzar: strait, narrow place
מֵצַר
This branch gives the image of being hemmed in that the name carries into the verse.
THE PATTERN
Famine can spread across a whole region, making the absence of nourishment visible wherever people turn.
And the famine was over all the face of the earth: and Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold unto the Egyptians; and the famine waxed sore in the land of Egypt.And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.And there stood up one of them named Agabus, and signified by the Spirit that there should be great dearth throughout all the world: which came to pass in the days of Claudius Cæsar.THE THREAD
And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.Acts says the fathers find no χορτάσματα (chortasmata, food or sustenance); Luke uses χορτασθῆναι (chortasthēnai, to be filled) for the son’s longing to eat even the pigs’ husks. The shared root connects the absence of provision here with hunger seeking anything that might fill.
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