What Does Romans 4:21 Mean?
And being filled and carried through, he was persuaded that what he had promised he was able also to do.
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 being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.THE KEY
The promise reaches its meaning when a spoken word becomes something the promiser can make.
THE MEANING
Your confidence can rest in the promiser’s ability to bring the promise into being, even while its fulfillment is not yet visible. The verse locates assurance in what God can do, not in what you can already see or accomplish.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that what is not yet visible must be impossible: the measure here is the promiser’s ability, not the present evidence.
THE ROOT
ποιῆσαι
poiēsai
GROWS FROM
ποι
poi
To do or make.
“perform” in this verse is poiēsai. The verse ends with a word for making or doing: the promise does not remain an announcement but reaches toward what God brings into being. The focus is on the maker’s ability to act.
ALSO GROWS
poiéō: Do, make, bring about.
ποιέω
This is the verb behind “perform”; it places the promise alongside the act that fulfills it.
poíēma: A thing made, a work.
ποίημα
This branch names what has been brought into being, echoing the verse’s movement from promise toward fulfillment.
ἐπήγγελται
epēngeltai
GROWS FROM
ἀγγελ
angel
Announce or bear a message; with the prefix ἐπι-, the verb can mean to promise or declare.
“promised” in this verse is epēngeltai. The promise is expressed as a declaration, and the verse joins that declaration to the capacity to act. What is spoken rests on the ability of the one who speaks it.
ALSO GROWS
angéllō: Announce, report.
ἀγγέλλω
This verb shows the message-bearing sense within the word translated “promised.”
ángelos: Messenger.
ἄγγελος
A messenger carries an announcement; here, the announced word is joined to the promiser’s ability to fulfill it.
THE PATTERN
A promise moves from what is spoken to what the promiser brings about.
And the LORD visited Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as he had spoken.And Flourishing is she who leaned her full weight, for there will be a completion of what was spoken to her from beside the LORD.Let us hold fast the saying of our hope without swerving, for steady is the one who promised;THE THREAD
Let us hold fast the saying of our hope without swerving, for steady is the one who promised;The word translated “promised” in both verses comes from ἐπαγγέλλομαι (epangellomai), to promise or declare. Romans joins that declaration to God’s ability to act; Hebrews connects holding fast to the faithfulness of the one who promises.
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