What Does Luke 1:57 Mean?
Now Elisabeth's time was filled for her to bring forth, and she brought forth a son.
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
Now Elisabeth’s full time came that she should be delivered; and she brought forth a son.THE KEY
The Greek says time itself was filled, so birth arrives as the visible form of that fullness.
THE MEANING
You meet this verse where carrying ends in arrival: time reaches fullness, and a son is born. Fulfillment here is bodily and concrete, a life brought into the open.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that fulfillment is only an inward feeling: here, fullness takes form as a child.
THE ROOT
ἐπλήσθη
eplēsthē
GROWS FROM
πλη-
plē-
Fill; become full.
“full time came” in this verse is eplēsthē. The Greek says the time was filled, not merely that a date arrived. The πλη- family holds filling and fullness together, so the birth follows a process reaching its full measure.
ALSO GROWS
plērēs: Full, complete
πλήρης
It shares the πλη- family and shows fullness as a state reached.
plēroō: To fill, fulfill, bring to completion
πληρόω
It shares the same root family and links being filled with reaching completion.
τεκεῖν
tekein
GROWS FROM
τεκ-
tek-
Beget, bear, bring forth.
“delivered” in this verse is tekein. The Greek verb for giving birth shares the τεκ- seed with words for the child and childbirth. The same family holds both the act of bearing and the life brought forth.
ALSO GROWS
teknon: Child, offspring
τέκνον
It shares the τεκ- root and names the life produced by the act of bearing.
toketos: Childbirth
τοκετός
It belongs to the same τεκ- consonantal family and names the birth itself.
THE PATTERN
When time is filled, what has been carried comes forth.
For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the appointed time of which God had spoken to him.But when the time was filled, God sent out his Son, come from a woman, come under the instruction.THE THREAD
But when the time was filled, God sent out his Son, come from a woman, come under the instruction.Luke says the time was filled; Galatians names the fullness of time before describing a son born of a woman. The shared Greek πλη- family makes both arrivals sound as though birth follows time reaching fullness.
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