What Does John 16:21 Mean?
A woman, when she brings forth, has pain, because her hour has come. But when she has borne the child, she no longer remembers the pressure, for the joy that a human has been brought forth into the world.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.THE KEY
Birth does not make the anguish unreal; it changes the hour’s meaning because a human life has arrived.
THE MEANING
Your anguish is real pressure in its hour, and the verse places it within labor that brings life into the world. When the child arrives, joy changes the place anguish holds in memory. The pain is not denied, but it is no longer the whole event.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie this undoes is that pain at its peak must remain the final meaning of the experience.
THE ROOT
τίκτῃ
tiktē from tíktō
GROWS FROM
τεκ-/τοκ- (tek-/tok-, the word family of τίκτω, tíktō)
To bear, give birth, or bring forth.
“brings forth” in this verse is tiktē from tíktō. English “travail” can foreground the pain of labor, while the underlying verb names bringing forth; the verse names her anguish separately as pressure. The sentence holds pain in the process and birth in its action, so the child is already part of what the labor means.
ALSO GROWS
tíktō: To bear, give birth, bring forth.
τίκτω
This is the verb beneath “travail” here: the action is bringing forth.
téknon: Child, descendant.
τέκνον
This related word for a child links the labor’s action to the person who arrives.
tókos: Childbirth, offspring; also interest or yield.
τόκος
The same word family can describe what is brought forth, extending the image from labor to its yield.
θλίψεως
thlipseōs
GROWS FROM
θλιβ- (from θλίβω, thlibō)
To press, squeeze, or constrict.
The anguish is named with the language of pressure pressing in, not only inward sadness. This root lets the labor and its distress echo as constriction, giving the pain a bodily shape.
ALSO GROWS
thlibō: To press, squeeze, or afflict.
θλίβω
The verb makes the pressure beneath this anguish explicit.
thlipsis: Pressure, affliction, distress.
θλῖψις
This noun names the pressing distress present in the verse.
γεγέννηται
gegennētai
GROWS FROM
γενν- (from γεννάω, gennaō)
To beget, bring forth, or give birth.
“borne the child” in this verse is gegennētai. The verse ends by naming a human being born into the world; this word family also carries the sense of origin and kin. Joy is attached to a new person in the shared world, not only to the end of a woman’s pain.
ALSO GROWS
gennaō: To beget, give birth, bring forth.
γεννάω
This is the verb behind the verse’s declaration that a human has been born.
genesis: Birth, origin, coming into being.
γένεσις
The related word for origin connects birth with the beginning of a life.
genos: Family, kind, lineage.
γένος
This branch links being born with belonging to a human family or kind.
THE PATTERN
Painful labor can carry new life into the world, and the arrival of life changes how the labor is remembered.
Those who sow in tears reap in a ringing cry.For we know that the whole creation groans together and labors together in the pangs of birth until now.THE THREAD
Truly, truly, I say to you, that you will weep and wail, but the world will rejoice; you will be pained, but your pain will become joy.John 16:20 repeats the same Greek words for sorrow and joy that appear here, then says sorrow is turned into joy. The childbirth picture makes that turn visible: joy arrives with the child, and anguish no longer fills the memory.
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