What Does Luke 1:10 Mean?
And the whole fullness of the people was praying outside at the hour of the incense.
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
And the whole multitude of the people were praying without at the time of incense.THE KEY
At the incense hour, the multitude’s prayer outside and the offering within meet in one shared act of appeal.
THE MEANING
A whole multitude prays together while incense is being offered. Their shared words occupy the same hour as the fragrant offering, joining the people’s appeal with a visible sign of devotion. The reader meets prayer here as a shared act, not only a private one.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
This undoes the belief that prayer is only a solitary act: here, a multitude prays together.
THE ROOT
προσευχόμενον
proseuchomenon
GROWS FROM
εὔχομαι
euchomai
To pray, wish, or vow; in this compound, prayer is directed toward its addressee.
“praying” in this verse is proseuchomenon. The word family holds prayer alongside a vow or wish, giving prayer the shape of a directed appeal rather than a vague religious mood. Here, that appeal is shared by the gathered multitude.
ALSO GROWS
euchē: A prayer, wish, or vow.
εὐχή
It shows that prayer and vowed desire belong to the same word family.
proseuchē: Prayer directed toward God.
προσευχή
The related noun names the act the multitude shares in this verse.
θυμιάματος
thymiamatos
GROWS FROM
θυμιάω
thymiaō
To burn incense or make fragrant by burning.
The word keeps incense concrete: fragrance comes through something offered and burned. Its appointed hour gives the multitude’s prayer a visible counterpart.
ALSO GROWS
thymiama: Fragrant material burned as incense.
θυμίαμα
This is the noun used in the verse for the incense whose hour marks the people’s prayer.
thymiatērion: A vessel for burning incense.
θυμιατήριον
It names the vessel that carries the burning incense, making the offering tangible.
THE PATTERN
Prayer is pictured as an appeal that comes before God, with incense giving it a visible counterpart.
Let my prayer be set before you as smoke, and the lifting of my palms as the evening offering.And the smoke of the incense rises with the prayers of the set-apart ones, from the hand of the messenger, before the face of God.And when he stretched his gaze upon him, he was afraid, and said, What is it, Lord? And he said to him, Your prayers and your acts of compassion have come up as a memorial before God.THE THREAD
Let my prayer be set before you as smoke, and the lifting of my palms as the evening offering.Psalm makes explicit what Luke places side by side: prayer and the hour of incense. It lets the shared timing in Luke open into an image of prayer as an offering set before God.
Read the SDV Bible.
Every verse has a Deep Dive in the app.
The iPhone Bible app with the Selah Decoded Version.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us