What Does Acts 7:14 Mean in the King James?
Then sent Joseph, and called his father Jacob to him, and all his kindred, threescore and fifteen souls.
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
Here “souls” means the living people themselves, so the verse holds family as a count of persons gathered within reach.
THE MEANING
A call gathers a family into presence as living souls, each person held within the kinship. Belonging takes shape among real lives.
THE ROOT
ψυχαῖς
psychais
GROWS FROM
ψυχ-
psych-
Living soul, the whole living self.
The Greek word counts the people themselves, holding each person inside the number. “Souls” here names a gathered household of living selves.
ALSO GROWS
psychē: Living soul
ψυχή
This is the singular form behind the verse’s plural, naming each person as a whole living self.
psychikos: Natural, belonging to the living self
ψυχικός
The shared stem carries the person as a living being, reinforcing that this count refers to people gathered together.
συγγένειαν
syngeneian
GROWS FROM
γεν-
gen-
Birth, descent, shared origin.
The word for kindred carries the idea of people joined through a common origin. The verse’s count grows from that shared belonging into particular living persons.
ALSO GROWS
syngenēs: Relative, one of the same family
συγγενής
This related form makes the shared descent in “kindred” concrete: a person bound to another by family origin.
genesis: Birth, origin
γένεσις
The same root points back to coming into being, placing family in a shared beginning.
יוֹסֵף
Yosef
GROWS FROM
יסף
y-s-f
Add, increase.
Joseph’s name carries the root of adding, and the verse places his father and kindred within reach as a household of living persons. The name’s echo of increase lands in a concrete gathering.
ALSO GROWS
Yosef: He adds; may he add
יוֹסֵף
The name itself carries addition, an echo beside the gathering of Joseph’s kin.
lehosif: To add, to increase
לְהוֹסִיף
This verb makes the name’s root active: something is brought alongside and added.
THE PATTERN
Scripture counts a people by living souls, keeping each person present inside the number.
All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob’s sons’ wives, all the souls were threescore and six;Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.THE THREAD
Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.Acts 2:41 uses the same Greek word, ψυχαί (psychai), for a counted gathering. In both verses, “souls” names the living persons within the number.
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