What Does Luke 2:6 Mean?

And so it was, while they were there, that the days of her bringing forth were filled.

Luke 2:6 · SDV

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.

This verse in the King James

King James wording

King James Version

And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.

THE KEY

The Greek says the days were filled to their measure, and then birth came forth: completion becomes a threshold into life.

THE MEANING

The days reach their fullness, and what has been carried is brought into the open as a child. The verse gives waiting a shape: its measure fills, and the life held within it comes forth.

WHAT THIS UNDOES

An interval without visible change is not necessarily empty or wasted; it may still be reaching its full measure.

THE ROOT

ἐπλήσθησαν

eplēsthēsan

GROWS FROM

πλη-

plē-

To fill or fill up; here, the days reach fullness.

Beneath “accomplished” is the image of days filled to their measure. Set beside the birth that follows, time’s fullness becomes the threshold from carrying to bringing forth.

ALSO GROWS

plērēs: full, filled

πλήρης

This related word names the state implicit in days that have reached their measure.

plēroō: to fill, fulfill, bring to completion

πληρόω

It carries the same fullness image into the sense of an event reaching completion.

τεκεῖν

tekein

GROWS FROM

⁨τεκ-⁩ (tek-), from ⁨τίκτω⁩ (tíktō)

To bear or bring forth.

“her bringing forth” in this verse is tekein. The Greek verb presents birth as bringing forth what has been carried. Alongside the filled days, it links completion with emergence: fullness reaches its visible form in a child.

ALSO GROWS

tókos: childbirth, offspring, yield

τόκος

Its sense of yield extends the image of what is brought forth.

téknon: child, offspring

τέκνον

The child is named through the same family of words as bearing and bringing forth.

THE PATTERN

What is carried comes forth when its measure reaches fullness.

For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the appointed time of which God had spoken to him.

Genesis 21:2 · SDVA child comes forth at the set time, linking birth with a measure that has reached its appointed point.

A time to bear, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted.

Ecclesiastes 3:2 · SDVBirth appears as one of life’s appointed seasons, held within a larger rhythm of planting and harvest.

But when the time was filled, God sent out his Son, come from a woman, come under the instruction.

Galatians 4:4 · SDVThe fullness of time becomes the moment a son is sent forth, echoing the passage’s movement from filled days to birth.

THE THREAD

Now Elisabeth's time was filled for her to bring forth, and she brought forth a son.

Luke 1:57 · SDV

Luke uses the same Greek fullness verb and birth verb in both passages. The repeated wording joins the two scenes in one structure: the time fills, then what is carried is brought forth.

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