What Does Luke 1:77 Mean?
To give his people the knowing of deliverance in the release of their shortcomings,
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
To give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins,THE KEY
Deliverance becomes known through release: what is missed can be let go without becoming your permanent name.
THE MEANING
Deliverance is becoming known to you through the release of what you have missed. The missing is acknowledged, yet it does not define you permanently; the verse places its release within the way deliverance is revealed.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that your failures put you beyond deliverance dissolves here: release is how deliverance becomes known to God’s people.
THE ROOT
ἄφεσις
aphesis
GROWS FROM
ἀφίημι
aphiēmi
To let go, release, leave, or send away.
The word rendered “remission” belongs to the same word family as “release” and “let go.” Luke uses this same noun for “deliverance” and “liberty” in Luke 4:18, letting one Greek word open into freedoms English presents separately.
ALSO GROWS
aphiēmi: Let go, leave, forgive, or send away.
ἀφίημι
The verb gives remission the shape of an act of release.
aphesis: Release, remission, or liberty.
ἄφεσις
This noun’s range connects release from wrongdoing with release from captivity.
ἁμαρτιῶν
hamartiōn
GROWS FROM
ἁμαρτάνω
hamartanō
To miss, fail to hit, or go wrong.
“shortcomings” in this verse is hamartiōn. The word translated “sins” carries the sense of missing or going wrong. Joined to release, the verse names the miss without making it the reader’s final identity.
ALSO GROWS
hamartia: A missing, a miss, or wrongdoing.
ἁμαρτία
This noun names what is released in the verse.
hamartōlos: A sinner; one described as having missed or gone wrong.
ἁμαρτωλός
The word family can name a person by the miss, while this verse speaks of that miss being released.
σωτηρίας
sōtērias
GROWS FROM
σῴζω
sōzō
To rescue, bring out of danger, or preserve.
“Salvation” here names deliverance: being brought out of danger. The verse links that deliverance with release, so the freedom is not abstract; it reaches what has gone wrong.
ALSO GROWS
sōzō: Rescue, deliver, or preserve.
σῴζω
The verb describes deliverance as an action that brings someone out.
sōtēr: A deliverer or rescuer.
σωτήρ
This related word gives deliverance the sense of being brought out by a rescuer.
THE PATTERN
What is missed or held in bondage can be released, opening a path into deliverance.
As far as the east is from the west, so far he puts our rebellions from us.The breath of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the emptied. He has sent me to heal the shattered in heart, to herald release to the captives, and the return of sight for the blind, to send the crushed away into release.In him we have our ransom through his blood, the release of our stumbles, according to the riches of his favor.THE THREAD
The breath of the LORD is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the emptied. He has sent me to heal the shattered in heart, to herald release to the captives, and the return of sight for the blind, to send the crushed away into release.Luke 4:18 uses ἄφεσις (aphesis), the same word rendered “remission” here, for both “deliverance” to captives and “liberty” for the bruised. The release named here reaches beyond the record of missing; it is the same word opening freedom where captivity and injury are present.
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