What Does Luke 1:42 Mean?
And she cried out in a great outcry, and said, Well spoken of are you among women, and well spoken of is the fruit of your womb.
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 she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.THE KEY
The blessing names the woman and the life she carries together, so the child’s fruitfulness does not erase her own.
THE MEANING
Two lives are named as blessed in one sentence: the woman and the child within her. The verse speaks now wherever a person’s worth is obscured by what they carry or create; it sees the person and the fruit together.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The woman’s value is only what she carries. The blessing addresses her directly before naming the fruit of her womb.
THE ROOT
εὐλογημένη
eulogēménē
GROWS FROM
εὐλογ-
From εὖ (eu, well) and λέγω (legō, speak): to speak well, praise, or pronounce blessing.
“Well spoken of” in this verse is eulogēménē. The same word is repeated over Mary and the child; the mother does not disappear into what she carries. The Greek word-family centers on speaking good, making this blessing an audible recognition of both.
ALSO GROWS
eulogía: blessing, praise
εὐλογία
This noun from the same word-family names blessing as something spoken or bestowed, giving weight to the verse’s voiced recognition.
eulogētos: blessed, praised
εὐλογητός
This related form describes one who receives blessing or praise, echoing the verse’s naming of both Mary and her child.
καρπός
karpós
GROWS FROM
καρπ-
Fruit: produce, harvest, or the outcome borne from a living source.
“fruit” in this verse is karpós. The word names an outcome that can be seen, while the womb names its hidden source. The verse lets the blessing rest on both the life still carried and the life already growing within her.
ALSO GROWS
karpophoreō: to bear fruit
καρποφορέω
This verb from the same word-family makes fruit-bearing an unfolding process, linking the child named here with the life that is still growing.
akarpos: fruitless
ἄκαρπος
This related form names the absence of fruit; by contrast, the verse calls attention to life already present and growing.
THE PATTERN
Blessing recognizes life through its fruit and treats that fruit as a gift.
And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Bear fruit and multiply, and fill the earth, and tread it under your foot, and rule over the fish of the sea, and over the winged of the heavens, and over every living thing that creeps upon the earth."Look, children are the LORD's portion; and the fruit of the womb is a wage.But the fruit of the breath is love, joy, wholeness, slowness to heat, kindness, goodness, trust,THE THREAD
Bless those who curse you, and pray for those who abuse you.Luke uses the same Greek verb, εὐλογέω (eulogeō, to bless), over Mary and the child here, and for blessing those who curse in 6:28. The shared root makes blessing a voiced act that can name goodness in both tender and hostile conditions.
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