What Does Luke 1:7 Mean?
And they had no child, because Elisabeth was unyielding, and they were both advanced in their days.
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 they had no child, because that Elisabeth was barren, and they both were now well stricken in years.THE KEY
Luke’s Greek echoes Genesis’s wording for people who have “advanced in days,” making elapsed time part of the barrier the verse names.
THE MEANING
The lack is full-sized here: no child, Elisabeth is barren, and both have moved far along in their days. For you, the verse gives bodily limits and elapsed time their full weight without assigning blame or pretending the ache is small.
THE ROOT
προβεβηκότες
probebēkótes
GROWS FROM
βαίνω
bainō: to go, step, move forward; the verb’s form shifts in the perfect participle.
“advanced in their days” in this verse is probebēkótes. The participle comes from προβαίνω (probaínō, “go forward”), so the phrase also pictures the couple as having moved through their days. The same participle appears in the Greek wording of Genesis 18:11, where Abraham and Sarah are also advanced in age.
ALSO GROWS
baínō: to go, step
βαίνω
This is the base verb behind the participle Luke uses for their advanced years.
probaínō: to go forward, advance
προβαίνω
This compound adds the sense of moving forward and supplies the form behind “advanced in years.”
στεῖρα
steîra
GROWS FROM
στείρ-
steîr-: the Greek stem for barrenness or inability to bear.
“unyielding” in this verse is steîra. Luke uses στεῖρα (steîra, “barren”) again in 1:36, where Elisabeth has conceived and is still called by this same word. The condition is fully present here, yet the repeated word lets it remain audible beside what follows.
ALSO GROWS
steîros: barren, infertile
στεῖρος
This form keeps the same στειρ- stem and names the condition shared across this word family.
steiróō: to make barren, render infertile
στειρόω
The verb retains the same stem and expresses the condition as something that can be brought about.
THE PATTERN
Scripture names barrenness and age directly, yet treats neither as the final measure of what can come forth.
Now Abraham and Sarah were old, come far into their days, and the path of women had stopped with Sarah.But to Hannah he gave a double portion, for he loved Hannah, yet the LORD had shut her womb.He settles the uprooted woman in the house, a glad mother of children. Praise the LORD.THE THREAD
Now Abraham and Sarah were old, come far into their days, and the path of women had stopped with Sarah.The Greek Genesis uses προβεβηκότες (probebēkótes, “having advanced”), the same participle Luke uses here, from βαίνω (baínō, “go, step”). The shared wording links the couples whose days have advanced while the child is still absent.
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