Luke 1:41

1:41 Elizabeth’s child leaped within her: See 1:15. John was already announcing the Messiah’s coming. • Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit: In the Old Testament, being filled with the Spirit was often associated with a prophetic gift. The Spirit of prophecy was again appearing in Israel (see 1:67; 2:25, 27).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Luk 1:41. Καὶ ἐπλήσθη, and was filled) The spiritual motions [and emotions] of the embryo and of the mother were conjoined: Luk 1:15.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk_1:41. Τὸν ἀσπασμ. τ. Μαρ.] the greeting of Mary. See Luk_1:40; Luk_1:44. This greeting on the part of Mary (not the communication of the angelic announcement, Luk_1:26 ff., as Kuinoel and others import) caused the leaping of the child (comp. Gen_25:22), and that as an exulting expression of the joy of the latter (Luk_1:44; Luk_6:23) at the presence of the Messiah[30] now in the womb of His mother. Elizabeth immediately through the Holy Spirit recognises the cause of the leaping. Comp. Hofmann, Weissag. u. Erfüll. II. p. 251 f. Calvin, Michaelis, Paulus, Olshausen, and many others reverse the matter, holding that the mental agitation of the mother had operated on the child (comp. also Lange, II. 1, p. 86), and that this circumstance had only afterwards, Luk_1:44, become significant to the mother. Analogous to the conception in our passage is Sohar Ex. f. xxiii. 91 f., xxv. 99: Omnes Israelitae ad mare rubrum plus viderunt quam Ezechiel propheta; imo etiam embryones, qui in utero matris erant, viderunt id, et Deum S. B. celebrarunt. A symbolical significance, expressive, namely, of the thought, that at the appearance of a higher Spirit the ideas that lie still unborn in the womb of the spirit of the world and of the people are quickened (Weisse), is foreign to the narrative,a modern abstraction.

[30] Older Lutherans (see Calovius) have wrongly used this passage as a proof of the fides infantum. There is, in fact, here something unique in character and miraculous. The child of Elizabeth has already in the womb the Holy Spirit, ver. 15.

Meyer — Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament — English translation by Peter Christie, edited by Frederick Crombie (T&T Clark, 1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Luk 1:41 . ἐσκίρτησε : commentators discuss the connection between the maternal excitement and the quickening of the child which was cause and which effect. Let this and all other questions in reference to the movement denoted be passed over in respectful silence.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

This was no ordinary nor usual kind of moving.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

babe leaped--From Luk 1:44 it is plain that this maternal sensation was something extraordinary--a sympathetic emotion of the unconscious babe, at the presence of the mother of his Lord.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 41. Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost.] This seems to have been the accomplishment of the promise made by the angel, Lu 1:15, He shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb. The mother is filled with the Holy Spirit, and the child in her womb becomes sensible of the Divine influence.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(41) The salutation of Mary.—The words of the greeting were, we may believe, the usual formula, “Peace be with thee,” or “The Lord be with thee,” possibly united with some special words of gratulation on what she had heard from the angel.

Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost.—What had been predicted of the Child (Luk_1:15) was now fulfilled ex abundanti in the mother. The fact related, so far as we look to human sources of information, must obviously have come to St. Luke, directly or indirectly, from the Virgin herself.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

41. leaped] The same word is applied to unborn babes in Gen_25:22, LXX.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

41 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:

Ver. 41. The babe leaped in her womb] Such comfort there is in the presence of Christ (though but in the womb) as it made John to spring. What then shall it be in heaven, think we?

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost - The meaning of this seems to be that she was filled with joy; with a disposition to praise God; with a prophetic spirit, or a knowledge of the character of the child that should be born of her. All these were produced by the Holy Spirit.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

The infant leaped in her womb.[7] According to the general opinion of the interpreters, this motion of the child at the time was not natural: and some think that God gave to St. John [the Baptist], even in his mother’s womb, a passing knowledge of the presence of his Redeemer. See St. Augustine in the above cited letter to Dardanus. (Witham)

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[BIBLIOGRAPHY]

Exultavit, Greek: eskirtese. Which signifies to leap, or skip like lambs, &c.

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

The motion of the child in the womb of the mother after her time of quickening is past, and the more than ordinary motion of it upon some extraordinary cause of joy, is no unusual thing with women in those circumstances; but doubtless as this motion was more than ordinary, so it had a more than ordinary cause, being caused from the Holy Spirit of God, and so the best interpreters judge: what is afterward said of Elisabeth, that she

was filled with the Holy Ghost, is expounded in the next words, wherein she prophesieth, of the Spirit of prophecy.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

41. Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost—It would seem that the pure and blessed Spirit rested divinely upon the person of the future mother of the Messiah; and her voice became, as it were, the conductor by the blessed sympathy of that spirit to the body, soul, and spirit of the future mother of the Baptist. Hence the words that Elisabeth now uttered were impregnated with inspiration, and she was enabled to address Mary with prophetic words.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit that Spirit of prophecy, so often mentioned in the Old Testament seizes her, and she salutes her young kinswoman, Mary, as the mother of the coming Messiah.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

When Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary - The discourse with which she saluted her, giving an account of what the angel had said, the joy of her soul so affected her body, that the very child in her womb was moved in an uncommon manner, as if it leaped for joy.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

41. ἐσκίρτησεν. The same word is applied to unborn babes in Gen 25:22, LXX[36]

[36] LXX. Septuagint.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

41.] The salutation uttered by Elisabeth is clearly implied to have been an inspiration of the Holy Spirit. No intimation had been made to her of the situation of Mary. The movement of the babe in her womb (possibly for the first time: vel nunc primum, vel saltem vehementius, quam pro more, Lightf.) was part of the effect of the same spiritual influence. The known mysterious effects of sympathy in such cases, at least lead us to believe that there may be corresponding effects where the causes are of a kind beyond our common experience.

τ. ἀσπασμ., not ‘the salutation of Mary (the Annunciation),’ but Mary’s salutation: the former construction is not according to Luke’s usage.

Henry Alford, The Greek Testament (1849–1861) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

41. ἐγένετο … ἐσκίρτησεν. See detached note at the end of the chapter. It is improbable that in her salutation Mary told Elisabeth of the angelic visit. The salutation caused the movement of the unborn child, and Elisabeth is inspired to interpret this sign aright. Grotius states that the verb is a medical word for the movement of children in the womb, but he gives no instances. It is used Gen 25:22 of the unborn Esau and Jacob, and Psa 113:4, Psa 113:6 of the mountains skipping like rams. In class. Grk. it is used of the skipping both of animals and of men. For ἐπλήσθη πνεύματος ἁγίου see on ver. 15. ὡς=“when” is very freq. in Lk.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The babe [το βρεφος] . See on 1Pe 2:2.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.