Elisabeth (Elizabeth)

Elisabeth is the Greek form of the Hebrew name also rendered Elizabeth, and in the New Testament it belongs to the wife of the priest Zechariah and mother of John the Baptist. Linguistically the name is built on the Hebrew words for "God" and "oath" or "abundance" and is usually explained as "God is my oath" or "God has sworn"; the same name is borne in the Hebrew Scriptures by Aaron's wife (Exodus 6:23). Luke introduces her as a descendant of Aaron and, with her husband, as "both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord" (Luke 1:6), while noting that the couple were childless and advanced in years (Luke 1:7).

The text says her story turns on a birth announced against age and barrenness. The angel tells Zechariah, "Your wife, Elizabeth, will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John" (Luke 1:13), and the child is described as going before the Lord "in the spirit and power of Elijah" (Luke 1:17). Her conception is later given to Mary as a sign of what God is doing: Elizabeth, her relative, has also conceived in her old age (Luke 1:36). Luke records that she read her pregnancy as God acting on her behalf, taking away her reproach (Luke 1:25).

At Mary's visit, the narrative presents Elizabeth as filled with the Holy Spirit and speaking a Spirit-given blessing: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!" (Luke 1:42), followed by her wonder that "the mother of my Lord" should come to her (Luke 1:43). The scene is striking within Luke's Gospel because the first explicit recognition of Mary's child in these chapters comes from Elizabeth before Jesus is born. She appears again at the child's circumcision on the eighth day, where she overrules the relatives and insists the boy be named John (Luke 1:57–60).

Christian traditions read her differently in emphasis, not in substance. Catholic and Orthodox churches venerate her as a saint with her own feast days and, in the Orthodox East, honor her as the mother of the Forerunner; Western Catholic devotion echoes her words in the Hail Mary, and Catholic theology has held that John was cleansed of original sin at the visitation, a claim Orthodox and Protestant readers generally do not frame in the same way. Protestant readers most often hold her up as a model of blameless faithfulness and of grace given to the barren, while across traditions her "mother of my Lord" is cited as an early testimony to the identity of Jesus.

AI-generated reference entry, grounded in the passages where this term appears — history and Scripture stated as such, interpretation labeled as interpretation. Not a substitute for the text itself.