What Does Luke 1:43 Mean?
And from where has this come to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
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 whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?THE KEY
The one Elizabeth calls Lord arrives through a mother’s visit, so divine presence is encountered as a human arrival at someone’s door.
THE MEANING
Recognition reaches Elizabeth before the child can be seen: she names the one Mary carries as her Lord. His nearness reaches her through a human visit, and that arrival astonishes her. The verse speaks of a presence that is already real while still hidden from sight.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The Lord is too distant to meet in the nearness of an ordinary human visit.
THE ROOT
κυρίου
kyriou
GROWS FROM
κυρ- (kyr-), the authority-bearing stem in κύριος
Authority, mastery; one who holds lordship.
English Lord can register as a title, while the Greek carries the sense of authority and mastery. Elizabeth calls the child still carried by Mary her Lord, recognizing that authority in an arrival that appears small and dependent.
ALSO GROWS
kyrieuō: Rule, exercise lordship over.
κυριεύω
The title’s authority becomes an active rule; Elizabeth’s my Lord names more than respect.
kyriotēs: Lordship, dominion.
κυριότης
This noun makes explicit the authority condensed in the title she gives the child.
ἔλθῃ
elthē
GROWS FROM
ἐρχ- / ἐλθ- (erch- / elth-), the present and aorist stems of ἔρχομαι
To come, go, arrive.
“come” in this verse is elthē. The verb carries movement into another person’s presence. Elizabeth’s astonishment is about nearness itself: the one she names Lord has arrived within Mary’s visit.
ALSO GROWS
eiserchomai: Enter, go in.
εἰσέρχομαι
This compound makes the threshold-crossing in arrival explicit.
exerchomai: Go out, depart.
ἐξέρχομαι
This compound uses the same verb stem for movement out, showing the range of motion carried by the root.
THE PATTERN
The Lord’s presence arrives among people and is recognized in the nearness they receive.
And David was in awe of the LORD that day, and said, "How shall the ark of the LORD come to me?"Lift up your heads, O gates; and be lifted up, O doors of the ages; and the King of weight enters.And the word became flesh and pitched a tent among us, and we beheld his weight, the weight as of the only-born from the Father, full of favor and truth.THE THREAD
And David was in awe of the LORD that day, and said, "How shall the ark of the LORD come to me?"David asks how the ark of the LORD can come to him; Elizabeth’s question has a strikingly similar shape as the mother of her Lord arrives. The ark marks the LORD’s presence, while Mary carries the one Elizabeth names as Lord, linking both arrivals with astonished recognition.
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