to shake
saleuo denotes being shaken or set in motion, from physical structures and heavenly powers to minds and crowds unsettled by events.
The attested use chiefly concerns physical or cosmic shaking: a prison’s foundations, an assembled place, a reed, a house, and heavenly powers are described in contexts of movement or stability. It also marks a person’s mind as unsettled and crowds as stirred up and troubled.
Senses in use
-
Physical or cosmic movement and instability · dominant
The forms describe things moved or liable to movement: in Acts 16:26 the APB renders the prison foundations as “shaken,” and in Acts 4:31 it renders the assembled place as “shaken.” In Luke 6:48, the aorist active infinitive occurs where a river strikes a well-founded house but cannot “shake it”; the same usage extends to a reed moved by wind and to the powers of the heavens in Matthew 11:7 and Matthew 24:29.
-
Being unsettled or stirred up · occasional
In 2 Thessalonians 2:2, the aorist passive infinitive is used in the request that readers not be quickly “shaken from the mind” or alarmed. In Acts 2:25, the first-person aorist passive subjunctive expresses the outcome that the speaker may not be shaken, while Acts 17:13 uses a present active participle in the account of people who “stirred up and troubled the crowds.”
In the Anselm Project Bible: The APB commonly uses “shaken” for places, foundations, reeds, heavenly powers, and the mind; it also renders the crowd-related clause as “stirred up and troubled.” Because the APB is a whole-verse translation, these renderings indicate the clauses’ presentation rather than fixed English equivalents.