"And John was clothed (in) camel hair and a leather belt around his waist, and [was] eating locusts and wild honey." Notice: (1) The imperfect ēn is the main verb of the entire sentence. (2) The perfect middle participle (3.m.s.) of endyō ("dress, clothe, put on, wear") and the present participle active of esthiō ("eat") are both helped by ēn to describe John's customary diet and dress. (3) Trichas is the accusative plural form of the feminine noun thrix ("hair"). It should be easy to spot kamēlou as the genitive singular form of kamēlos, "camel," which is the same whether masculine or feminine. "Hairs of camel," i.e., camel-hair. (4) The accusative form trichas is used without a preposition because in Greek thought, it is the direct object of endedymenos, "having worn." We supply the preposition "in" to make the thought flow in English: "was clothed in camel-hair." (5) In a similar way we get zonē ("belt," f.s.) in the accusative, along with the adjective dermatinos, -ē, -on ("leather") in its fem. acc. sing. form: "leather belt." (6) The direct object of esthiōn is the acc. pl. form of akris, -idos, a feminine third-declension noun ("locust"). Some scholars, however, insist that this refers not to the literal insects (which are edible and even--unlike other insects--kosher, but only sporadically available as a food source), but rather to the seed-pods of the carob tree that were used as swine fodder, e.g., in Luke 15:16. (7) Meli, -itos ("honey") is a neuter third-declension noun, hence the accusative is identical to the nominative form. (8) The neut. acc. sing. form of the adjective agrios, -a, -on ("wild") agrees with the noun it modifies, meli. The related noun agros means "field, countryside," etc.
"Get for yourselves neither gold nor silver nor copper (to put) into your money belts, neither a bag for the road nor two tunics nor sandals nor a staff..." Observe: (1) Mē is a negative adverb frequently used to negate a verb, such as the aorist subjunctive middle 2nd-person plural ktēsēsthe (pronounced with no vowel sound between the k- and the -t-; from ktaomai, "acquire, gain"). (2) While Greek does have an imperative mood, the the subjunctive can also be used to give commands--especially negative ones. So: "Do not acquire for yourselves..." (3) Used together, mē and mēde mean "neither... nor..." (4) The three acc. masc. sing. nouns chryson, argyron, chalkon ("gold, silver, copper") are the direct object of ktēsēsthe, and are used in the sense of "types of money" rather than "metallic elements." (5) The preposition eis ("into") is used with the acc. pl. of the fem. noun zonē ("belt"), which we also saw in Mark 1:6; here it is used in the sense not of the sash about one's waist as a "money belt." (6) Hymōn is the genitive plural form of the second person pronoun, hence "your" money-belts, in the context of Jesus commissioning his disciples to preach. (7) The feminine noun pēra ("bag"), is here acc. pl. because it too is the direct object of the verb at the beginning of verse 9. This type of bag could be used either by travelers (to carry provisions) or by beggars (to accumulate ditto). (8) The expression eis hodon ("onto [the] road") could be interpreted as "for [your] journey." (9) Dyo is the number 2. Chitōnas is the acc. pl. of the masc. 3rd-declension noun chitōn ("tunic"), meaning a type of shirt that was worn next to the skin, under the outer garments. (10) Hypodēmata is the acc. pl. form of hypodēma ("shoe"), one of the "-ma neuter" type of 3rd-declension nouns. (11) Rhabdos, here seen in its acc. sing. form, means "stick," sometimes in the sense of scepter (of authority) or rod (of discipline), but here simply a walking-stick. To be sure, the products shown in the picture would not have been available at the time Jesus said these words!
"Behold, I Myself am sending you as sheep in the midst of wolves; therefore be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves." And now behold: (1) Idou is an indeclinable particle often translated as "Behold!" It puts a kind of emphasis on whatever comes after it. Depending on the context where it appears, it can be translated in several different ways. (2) Egō is the pronoun "I." Since the verb apostello (present active indicative, "send") has a first-person singular ending ("I send"), the pronoun is not strictly necessary unless the speaker wishes, for some reason, to emphasize himself as the subject of the verb; hence "I Myself." (3) I chose to translate the present-tense verb with a sort of "present imperfect" aspect, which is always an option, context permitting. My reason for this choice is that Jesus, as He speaks, is in the very act of sending them, giving instructions that specifically apply to that one missionary tour and no other. A simple present form such as "I send you" could be interpreted as though Jesus was describing something that he generally or perpetually does. (4) Hymas, the acc. pl. of that second-person pronoun ("you"), is the direct object of "I am sending". (5) Hōs is the comparative particle ("as, like"). (6) Probaton, the neuter noun for "sheep," here appears in the acc. pl., indicating that "like sheep" modifies "you." (7) En mesō, using the dative singular form of the adjective mesos ("middle"), is an idiomatic expression that can be translated "among" or, I think more stylishly, "in the midst." (8) Lycōn is the gen. pl. form of the masc. noun lycos, "wolf." Now you know where the Lycans rose from, and why "lycanthrope" (lit. "wolf-man") is the leading synonym for the Anglo-Saxon word "werewolf" (lit. "man-wolf"). (9) Ginesthe is the present imperative of the deponent verb ginomai ("become"). By "deponent," again, we mean "middle or passive in form, active in meaning"; or, in many cases including this one, we mean that the verb lacks an active stem. By using the open-ended present imperative, rather than the comparatively closed aorist ditto, Jesus applies his command to a range of time rather than to a single event. (10) The adjective phronimos (here in its nom. pl. form) can be interpreted as "wise, sensible," or even "shrewd." In a parallel construction, the adjective akeraios ("innocent, guileless, pure") begins with an a- prefix that, in many Greek words, negates the meaning of the original stem, much as the prefixes "un-" and "non-" do in English. This a- prefix is known among grammarians as the alpha privativum, so you'll know what I mean the next time I drop that phrase. I'm not exactly sure of the etymological connection, but I know that the fem. verb keraia, meaning a "stroke" of the pen, occurs in Matthew 5:18 and Luke 16:17. So, for what it's worth, I would speculate that akeraios derives its meaning of "innocent" from the thought "without a stain on it" or "without a stroke against it." (11) Opheis is the nom. pl. form of the masc. noun ophis ("snake, serpent"), a declension pattern you haven't learned yet. See the assignment below. (12) Peristerai is the nom. pl. form of the feminine noun peristera, "dove, pigeon."
"And the first living creature (was) similar to a lion, and the second living creature (was) similar to a calf, and the third living creature had the face as of a man, and the fourth living creature was similar to a flying eagle." Note: (1) The adjectives prōtos, deuteros, tritos, and tetartos, -ē, -on, here all in their masc. acc. sing. forms, mean "first, second, third," and "fourth," respectively. (2) This entire verse seems to continue the thought of Revelation 4:6, which describes four "living creatures" (or "animals"--the neuter noun zōon being derived from zōē, "life"), covered with eyes from front to back, standing in the midst of the throne and around the throne. So, in context, it may not be necessary to insert the verb "was," nor to change the pres. participle echōn ("having") into a past-tense verb, since the entire verse is as it were an adjective modifying the four zōa of verse 6. (3) The first, second, and fourth living creatures, in order, are "similar" (homoios) to a lion (leōn, -ontos, 3rd-declension masc.), a calf or young bull (moschos, -ou, 2nd-decl. masc.), and an eagle (aetos, -ou, 2nd decl. masc.) which, moreover, is described as "flying" per the present participle form of the deponent verb petomai, "fly." All three of these beasts are named in the dative sing., as befits objects of homoios, "similar to." (4) Homoios lends itself to the heretical term homoiousios, which described God the Son as being of a "similar" essence to the Father, as opposed to homoousios, of the "same" substance. (5) The neuter noun prosōpon, here appearing as the object of the participle ecōn ("having"), means "face" or "appearance." John does not write that this creature had the face of a man, but that it had a face or appearance as of a man; the insertion of hōs ("as") before the gen. sing. form of anthropos ("man") is crucial. What John was saying was not a man as such, but a being for whom the semblance of a human face holds some symbolic significance. Most interestingly, Christian religious symbolism has depicted the four evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John respectively as a winged man, a winged lion, a winged ox, and a soaring eagle. Surely on the basis of this verse, some clever-clogs is going to claim that John here stumps for the priority of Mark; but if the order in which John lists these living creatures relates to the order in which the gospels were written, it should be strange to see Matthew after Luke when, in Luke 1:1, the third evangelist says that his gospel was subsequent to "many others" (including, one would think, both Matthew and Mark). So it is most likely that this whole discussion of the four evangelists has been a pointless digression. But, at any rate, we're done.WRAPPING UP
The main point of today's exercise was to pick up a few more vocables from the pictures, which illustrate (with arrows, even) which Greek words or phrases represent what items. Perhaps of greater practical use to your ongoing exegetical studies, you learned the harder-to-illustrate words idou ("behold"), hōs ("as, like"), egō ("I"), apostellō ("send," from which we get the term "apostle"), en mesō ("among, amid"), phronimos ("wise, sensible"), the ordinal numbers prōtos, deuteros, tritos, tetartos ("first, second, third, fourth"), homoios ("similar to"), and the unheralded but tremendously important verb echō ("have"). And you may have noticed how, to properly identify an adjective, one gives the full masculine (nom. sing.) form followed by the feminine and neuter endings; or, in the case of a noun, the nominative singular form followed by the genitive singular ending. This enables you to identify which column of case-endings goes with each form; the rest you can extrapolate by analogy to the paradigms you have already learned.
Homework
+++Pending--This Stuff Takes Time!+++
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