What Does Luke 1:57 Mean in the King James?
Now Elisabeth’s full time came that she should be delivered; and she brought forth a son.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The Greek says time itself was filled, so birth arrives as the visible form of that fullness.
THE MEANING
You meet this verse where carrying ends in arrival: time reaches fullness, and a son is born. Fulfillment here is bodily and concrete, a life brought into the open.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that fulfillment is only an inward feeling: here, fullness takes form as a child.
THE ROOT
ἐπλήσθη
eplēsthē
GROWS FROM
πλη-
plē-
Fill; become full.
“full time came” in this verse is eplēsthē. The Greek says the time was filled, not merely that a date arrived. The πλη- family holds filling and fullness together, so the birth follows a process reaching its full measure.
ALSO GROWS
plērēs: Full, complete
πλήρης
It shares the πλη- family and shows fullness as a state reached.
plēroō: To fill, fulfill, bring to completion
πληρόω
It shares the same root family and links being filled with reaching completion.
τεκεῖν
tekein
GROWS FROM
τεκ-
tek-
Beget, bear, bring forth.
“delivered” in this verse is tekein. The Greek verb for giving birth shares the τεκ- seed with words for the child and childbirth. The same family holds both the act of bearing and the life brought forth.
ALSO GROWS
teknon: Child, offspring
τέκνον
It shares the τεκ- root and names the life produced by the act of bearing.
toketos: Childbirth
τοκετός
It belongs to the same τεκ- consonantal family and names the birth itself.
THE PATTERN
When time is filled, what has been carried comes forth.
For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him.But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,THE THREAD
But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,Luke says the time was filled; Galatians names the fullness of time before describing a son born of a woman. The shared Greek πλη- family makes both arrivals sound as though birth follows time reaching fullness.
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