What Does Luke 1:41 Mean?
And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb, and Elisabeth was filled with the Set-Apart Breath.
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 it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:THE KEY
A child’s leap and Elisabeth’s filling with pneuma, breath, belong to the same embodied moment.
THE MEANING
A voice reaches the body, and life responds: the child moves while Elisabeth is filled with set-apart breath. The verse holds bodily movement and sacred presence together, even before the moment is fully explained.
THE ROOT
πνεύματος
pneumatos
GROWS FROM
πνευ-
pneu-
Breath or wind in motion; the word family carries both meanings.
“Set-Apart Breath” in this verse is pneumatos. The English “Ghost” renders πνεύματος (pneumatos), the form of πνεῦμα (pneuma, breath/wind) used here. Its kin πνεύμων (pneumōn, lung) keeps this word family close to the breathing body, so Elisabeth’s filling and the child’s leap occupy one scene.
ALSO GROWS
pnéō: Breathe, blow
πνέω
This verb gives the breath-and-wind family its motion.
pneumōn: Lung, a breathing organ
πνεύμων
The same word family reaches into the body that breathes.
ἐσκίρτησεν
eskirtēsen
GROWS FROM
σκίρτ-
skirt-
To leap or spring.
The same verb returns in the next verse, where Elisabeth says the child leaped for joy when Mary’s voice reached her. The repeated word presents the movement as a response, not an isolated detail.
ALSO GROWS
eskirtēsen: Leaped
ἐσκίρτησεν
Elisabeth uses this same form in Luke 1:44 to name the child’s movement at the sound of Mary’s greeting.
skirtēsate: Leap for joy
σκιρτήσατε
In Luke 6:23, the same verb family describes leaping as an expression of joy.
THE PATTERN
When life meets deliverance or divine presence, the response can become a visible leap.
The mountains leapt like rams, and the hills like lambs.Then the limping one leaps like a hart, and the tongue of the mute rings out. For waters split open in the wilderness, and streams in the desert plain.Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven. For in the same way their fathers did to the prophets.THE THREAD
For look, as soon as the sound of your greeting came into my ears, the babe leaped in my womb, in a leap of joy.The same Greek verb, σκίρτω (skirtō, to leap or spring), returns as Elisabeth names the child’s movement at the sound of Mary’s voice. Its repetition connects the greeting, the body’s response, and joy in one unfolding moment.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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