What Does Luke 1:64 Mean?
At once his mouth was opened, and his tongue was opened, and he spoke well of God.
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 his mouth was opened immediately, and his tongue loosed, and he spake, and praised God.THE KEY
The tongue is released, and its first words are blessing: in this verse, restored speech emerges as praise.
THE MEANING
What is closed can open, and what is bound can be released. Speech that returns can become blessing directed toward God. The change comes through release: nothing is added to the tongue before it speaks.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that silence proves a voice is gone for good is undone: a bound tongue can be released and speak again.
THE ROOT
ἐλύθη
elýthē
GROWS FROM
λύω
lyō
To loosen, untie, or release.
The word for the tongue being “loosed” carries the sense of a binding removed. The verse’s movement is from restraint to speech: the voice is uncovered as the tongue is released.
ALSO GROWS
lytron: Ransom; a means of release.
λύτρον
This related word carries release into the idea of freedom from a binding claim.
apolýō: Release or dismiss.
ἀπολύω
The same root names an act of letting someone go, bringing the verse’s release into everyday speech.
εὐλογῶν
eulogōn
GROWS FROM
εὐλογέω
eulogeō
To speak well of; to bless.
“spoke well of” in this verse is eulogōn. The word translated “praised” also means to bless, to speak well. As the tongue is released, speech becomes blessing; the verse joins the return of voice with what that voice says.
ALSO GROWS
eulogía: Blessing.
εὐλογία
This noun carries the same blessing-language that gives the returning speech its direction.
eulogētos: Blessed; worthy of blessing.
εὐλογητός
This related form describes the one toward whom blessing is spoken, here God.
THE PATTERN
When speech is released, the voice turns toward praise and testimony.
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.Lord, open my lips, and my mouth sets forth your praise.Cretes and Arabians, we hear them speak in our tongues the great works of God.THE THREAD
The one who had died came out, his hands and feet bound in strips of cloth, and a cloth wrapped his face. Jesus said to them, Untie him, and let him go.“Loose” here is λῦσαι (lūsai), from λύω (lyō), to loose or release, the same verb behind “loosed” in Luke 1:64. In John, the word names the removal of bindings from a person; in Luke, release reaches the tongue, and blessing comes out.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
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