Acts 2:24
Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.
Study Note
Study Note
Peter's proclamation 'whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it' is the theological center of the Pentecost speech and one of the earliest christological kerygmatic formulations preserved in Acts. The phrase 'pains of death' (ōdinas tou thanatou) is a LXX rendering of Psalm 116:3 where 'cords of death' is translated with the same word used for birth pangs (ōdin), suggesting that resurrection is the birth from death's womb. The impossibility claim — 'it was not possible that he should be holden' — grounds the resurrection in divine necessity rather than miracle alone: death could not contain the 'Holy One' (Psalm 16:10, quoted in v. 27) whose life was constitutively incorruptible. The verse is the starting point of Lukan resurrection theology and the foundational proclamation of Easter faith in the New Testament.
Other Translations
whom God raised up, having loosed the pangs of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.
whom God did raise up, having loosed the pains of the death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it,
But God gave him back to life, having made him free from the pains of death because it was not possible for him to be overcome by it.
Cross References
The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow.
Then called I upon the name of the Lord; O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul.
O Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid: thou hast loosed …
He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and …
Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in …
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul …
I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will …
Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again.
Now upon the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came unto the sepulchre, bringing the …
And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.