What Does Luke 1:70 Mean?
As he spoke through the mouth of his set-apart prophets, who have been since the ages began,
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
As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began:THE KEY
The mouth is the hinge: what is spoken across the ages reaches you through a human voice.
THE MEANING
God’s speech reaches you through human voices set apart to carry it, within a chain that runs across the ages. The verse makes that transmission embodied: what reaches you is spoken through a mouth.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that God’s speech must arrive apart from human voices; here, the human mouth is the means through which it reaches you.
THE ROOT
προφητῶν
prophētōn
GROWS FROM
φημί
phēmi
to say, to speak
“prophets” in this verse is prophētōn. The word keeps prophecy grounded in speaking: the prophet is the mouth through which the message is voiced. That speaking-root makes the verse’s “mouth” central to how the message reaches you.
ALSO GROWS
phēmi: to say, to speak
φημί
This is the speaking-root within the word for prophet.
prophēteia: prophecy
προφητεία
This related word keeps prophecy connected to the act of speaking.
ἁγίων
hagiōn
GROWS FROM
ἁγ-
hag-
set apart, dedicated
“set-apart” in this verse is hagiōn. “Holy” describes these prophets as set apart. In this sentence, that setting apart is tied to their role as voices through which God speaks.
ALSO GROWS
hagiazō: to set apart
ἁγιάζω
It names the act expressed by the set-apart quality of the prophets.
hagiasmos: setting apart, consecration
ἁγιασμός
It shows the same word-family describing a state of being set apart.
αἰῶνος
aiōnos
GROWS FROM
αἰών
aiōn
age, span of time
The word places these prophetic voices within the ages, giving their speech a long continuity. The verse presents this as a thread of voices reaching across time, rather than a solitary moment.
ALSO GROWS
aiōnes: ages
αἰῶνες
The plural makes the long span explicit.
aiōnios: age-related, age-long
αἰώνιος
This related form carries the same age-based sense into descriptions of duration.
THE PATTERN
God’s speech reaches the present through human voices across successive ages.
For the Lord GOD does nothing, unless he uncovers his secret to his servants the prophets.God, who in many portions and in many ways spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets.For prophecy is never borne by the wanting of man, but set-apart men of God speak, borne by the Set-Apart Breath.THE THREAD
Whom the heaven must take in until the times of setting upright again of all things, which God has spoken through the mouth of his set-apart prophets from the ages.Acts 3:21 repeats the same word-family chain: στόμα (stoma, mouth), ἅγιος (hagios, set apart), προφήτης (prophētēs, prophet), and αἰών (aiōn, age). The repeated wording makes the mouth central: God’s speech travels through human voices across the ages.
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