Derived from existemi ('to displace, put outside'), the noun ekstasis captures the experience of being thrown outside one's ordinary mental state — whether by astonishment or by divine vision. In its more common NT usage, it denotes the sheer amazement that seizes witnesses of the miraculous: the crowd's stupefied wonder when Jairus's daughter rises (Mark 5:42), the trembling and bewilderment of the women at the empty tomb (Mark 16:8), and the astonishment that grips onlookers after the healing of the lame man at the Beautiful Gate (Acts 3:10). Spanish asombro/extasis and French extase converge on the 'outside-standing' metaphor, while Hindi uses vishmayi (amazement). But Acts introduces a second, specifically revelatory sense: Peter falls into a 'trance' on the rooftop at Joppa (Acts 10:10; 11:5), and Paul recounts entering a 'trance' while praying in the temple (Acts 22:17). Here ekstasis is no longer mere astonishment but an altered state of consciousness in which God delivers visions — the ancestor of what later Christian mysticism would call 'ecstasy.'