The Greek etos (G2094) is simply a year, but in the NT its uses carry significant theological weight. Simeon and Anna had waited years for the Messiah (Luke 2:36-37). Paul had his three years in Arabia after his conversion (Galatians 1:18). The woman bent double had suffered eighteen years (Luke 13:11). The man at Bethesda had been ill thirty-eight years (John 5:5). The repeated emphasis on years of waiting underlines the costliness of hope and the faithfulness of the God who finally acts.
The etos passages collectively form a theology of patient waiting. The years of delay are not failures of faith but spaces for God's sovereign preparation. Anna's eighty-four years as a widow in the temple, waiting for the consolation of Israel, is the paradigm of faithful longing (Luke 2:37). Paul's fourteen years before his public ministry (Galatians 2:1) parallel Moses' forty years in the desert. The NT's longest waiting period is the 1,000 years of Revelation 20 — but even that is not an eternity. All etē (years) move toward the moment when 'time shall be no more' (Revelation 10:6).