What Does Luke 1:37 Mean?
For with God nothing will be impossible.
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
For with God nothing shall be impossible.THE KEY
The “nothing” is every word or matter: what appears impossible remains within God’s capacity.
THE MEANING
The verse meets you where something seems beyond reach: its apparent impossibility does not define God’s capacity. What is spoken or unfolding remains within the scope of what is possible with God.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The visible limits of your situation are the final measure of what God can do.
THE ROOT
ἀδυνατήσει
adynatēsei
GROWS FROM
δύνα- (dyna-), from δύναμαι (dynamai)
To be able; to have power or capacity.
“will be impossible” in this verse is adynatēsei. The verb translated “impossible” belongs to the δύνα- (dyna-, ability or power) family: impossibility is framed as inability. The word rendered “nothing” is πᾶν ῥῆμα (pan rhēma, every word, utterance, or matter), so the claim reaches beyond an abstract idea to whatever is spoken or unfolding.
ALSO GROWS
dynamis: Power, ability
δύναμις
It names the capacity that underlies what is possible.
dynatos: Able, possible
δυνατός
It shows the same root in its affirmative form: having capacity.
adynatos: Unable, impossible
ἀδύνατος
The privative prefix ἀ- (a-, without) turns ability into inability, revealing impossibility as the absence of capacity.
THE PATTERN
What exceeds human capacity does not set the limit of what is possible with God.
Is any word too hard for the LORD? At the appointed time I will turn back to you, at this season of life, and Sarah will have a son.Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great strength and outstretched arm, and nothing is too hard for you.Jesus looked at them and said, With humankind it is impossible, but not with God, for with God all things are possible.THE THREAD
Jesus looked at them and said, With humankind it is impossible, but not with God, for with God all things are possible.Both verses use the Greek δύνα- (dyna-, ability or power) word family to describe what is impossible and what is possible. Mark makes the distinction explicit: human capacity has limits; God’s capacity is not measured by them.
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