Footnote

k When the Greek verb khei·ro·to·neʹo is defined as meaning only ‘to elect by stretching out the hand,’ this fails to take note of the later meaning of the word. Thus, A Greek-English Lexicon, by Liddell and Scott, edited by Jones and McKenzie and reprinted in 1968, defines the word as meaning “stretch out the hand, for the purpose of giving one’s vote in the assembly . . . II. c. acc. pers. [with accusative of person], elect, prop[erly] by show of hands . . . b. later, generally, appoint, . . . appoint to an office in the Church, [pre·sby·teʹrous] Act. Ap. [Acts of the Apostles] 14.23.” That later usage was current in the days of the apostles; the term was used in that sense by the first-century Jewish historian Josephus in Jewish Antiquities, Book 6, chapter 4, paragraph 2, and chapter 13, paragraph 9. The grammatical structure itself of Acts 14:23 in the original Greek shows that Paul and Barnabas were the ones who did what was there described.