Bible Strands
Luke 1:41
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Elizabeth acts upon hearing Mary’s greeting upon Mary’s arrival at Zechariah’s home. The moment captures the immediate physical and spiritual response to Mary’s presence.
The words — The text highlights ἤκουσεν (ēkousen), meaning "heard," and ἀσπασμὸν (aspasmon), meaning "greeting," marking the auditory trigger for the subsequent events. These terms anchor the narrative in a concrete, sensory encounter rather than abstract theology.
The thread — The motif of being filled with the Holy Spirit reappears when Zechariah receives the same empowerment to prophesy (Luke 1:67). The leaping baby motif is explicitly linked to joy in Luke 1:44, while Peter’s later Spirit-filling in Acts 4:8 shows the pattern continuing in the apostolic witness.
Why it lands — The passage demands recognition that divine action initiates through ordinary human contact. It requires the reader to account for the Holy Spirit’s direct agency in bodily and vocal responses without reducing the event to mere symbolism.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:
Cross-references
- Luke 1:67 Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied:
- Luke 1:44 For as soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.
- Acts 4:8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers and elders of the people!
- Luke 1:15 for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He shall never take wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb.
- Acts 2:4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
- Psalms 22:10 From birth I was cast upon You; from my mother’s womb You have been my God.
- Acts 7:55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked intently into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
- Revelation 1:10 On the Lord’s day I was in the Spirit, and I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet,
- Genesis 25:22 But the children inside her struggled with each other, and she said, “Why is this happening to me?” So Rebekah went to inquire of the LORD,
- Luke 4:1 Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,