What Does Acts 7:27 Mean in the King James?
But he that did his neighbour wrong thrust him away, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us?
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 first defense of injustice here is to put the one who intervenes on trial for his authority.
THE MEANING
When you name a wrong done to someone near you, the person challenged can push you away and make your authority the subject. The neighbor’s wrong remains present even as the question turns the spotlight onto the one who intervenes.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this exposes is that asking Who are you to speak? answers the harm itself.
THE ROOT
ἀδικῶν
adikōn
GROWS FROM
δίκη
dikē
Right, justice, what is due.
The word for doing wrong, ἀδικῶν (adikōn), carries the same δικ- (dik-) stem as δικαστής (dikastēs), the word for judge. The verse’s language places the wrong and the judgment side by side: the one who violates what is due to a neighbor challenges the one who would judge the act.
ALSO GROWS
adikia: Injustice, wrongdoing.
ἀδικία
It names the condition created when what is due is denied.
dikastēs: Judge, one who gives judgment.
δικαστής
It is the very role the wrongdoer challenges in the verse.
dikaios: Just, aligned with what is right.
δίκαιος
It shares the stem that links the act of wronging with judgment.
ἀπώσατο
apōsato
GROWS FROM
ὠθέω
ōtheō
Push, thrust.
“thrust him away” in this verse is apōsato. The verb pictures rejection as a push away: before the authority question is spoken, the intervening person is driven back. The question is part of an act of dismissal, not a neutral request for information.
ALSO GROWS
ōtheō: Push, thrust.
ὠθέω
This is the root action carried in the verse’s image of pushing someone away.
apōtheō: Push away, reject.
ἀπωθέω
The compound makes the outward movement explicit: rejection creates distance from the one who intervenes.
THE PATTERN
When an intervention threatens a wrong or a settled claim to authority, the response can turn from the matter at hand to the intervening person’s right to speak.
And he said, Who made thee a prince and a judge over us? intendest thou to kill me, as thou killedst the Egyptian? And Moses feared, and said, Surely this thing is known.And when he was come into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people came unto him as he was teaching, and said, By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority?They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out.THE THREAD
This Moses whom they refused, saying, Who made thee a ruler and a judge? the same did God send to be a ruler and a deliverer by the hand of the angel which appeared to him in the bush.The challenge in this verse returns almost word for word, then the answer reverses it: the one refused is the one sent. Their question about who made Moses a ruler does not settle his role.
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