3
NOUNS: PART 2
GENITIVE AND DATIVE CASES
3.1. In the previous chapter you learned the basics about nouns and were introduced to the first two cases (though you learned endings for all four cases). In this chapter we will study the second two cases: genitive and dative. There is one more case, the vocative, which is seldom used (see app. D). We will begin by looking at some similar features in English.
Possessive Case
3.2. In English we use the possessive case to indicate ownership (e.g., Daniel’s computer). Actually the English possessive case is much broader than possession or ownership (though that is what most students think of when they hear the term).[1] As one English grammar explains, “we employ the possessive case of a noun or pronoun when we wish to indicate possession or source. We also use the possessive to indicate concepts involving time, place, author, or doer.” A note then explains that “in effect, we employ the possessive case to change a substantive to a modifier.”[2] These half-dozen examples are given to illustrate the range of English usage:[3]
| Possession: | I bought the neighbor’s car. |
| Authorship: | The instructor assigned Fielding’s novel. |
| Subject of: | They unveiled Roosevelt’s portrait. |
| Time: | We were happy to see the day’s end. |
| Place: | Did they find the trail’s end? |
| Doer of an action: | They resented that man’s actions. |
Indirect Object
3.3. We refer to the person/thing to whom or for whom the action of the verb is done as the indirect object. This is usually one word and most commonly occurs (in English) between the verb and the direct object. For example,
Meghan threw Liam an apple.
In this sentence we say that “Liam” is the indirect object, because he receives the action (and the apple also).[4] The subject of this sentence (the doer of the action) is “Meghan.” The direct object is “apple,” since that is what is thrown. Consider a variation of this example:
Meghan threw an apple to Liam.
This second sentence says the exact same thing but uses a prepositional phrase (“to Liam”) instead of an indirect object.[5] English does not have a separate case for the indirect object; Greek does.
3.4. A genitive-case noun functions to restrict (or modify) another word in the sentence, usually the word directly preceding it in word order.[6] The word being modified is called the head word. The way in which the genitive restricts the head word varies. There is not a single “meaning” for the genitive case but a range of semantic relationships. You will see some of the most common ones in this chapter, but your understanding of the genitive will grow as you continue studying. The key is to ask in what way the genitive noun restricts the reference of the head noun. To determine that, you need to consider the context. If you were trying to express this relationship in English, you might do so by using an English prepositional phrase with the word of. But in other cases it may make better sense to use from, for, by, or with. In yet other instances you will use the English possessive suffix, ’s. Sometimes you discover that we use an entirely different form to express it in English.
For example, we might refer to the word or a word (which might be Tom, Dick, or Harry’s word—any old word at all), but we could be more specific by referring to Anna’s word or to the word of God.[7] Or consider these two English examples:
A wife is expecting a baby in October. (Thousands of wives fit that description.)
Rob’s wife is expecting a baby in October (or: The wife of Rob . . .).
In English we would call this second example an instance of the possessive case; in Greek it would be in the genitive case. The genitive (“Rob’s”) restricts the head word (“wife”). It is not just a “wife” who anticipates giving birth, but “Rob’s wife” (we will call her Stephanie). Note that this is not strictly possession but relationship. (Rob does not own Stephanie.)
3.5. In Greek, the genitive is formed by adding an ending to the stem of the word. For example, the word θεός is in the nominative case. If we change the ending from -ος to the genitive ending -ου, then θεοῦ might mean (depending on the context), of God, from God, or God’s. The usual pattern in Greek is for the word in the genitive case to follow the noun it modifies, though occasionally it will precede the word it modifies. Here are some examples.
βιβλίος θεοῦ = “book of/from God” or “God’s book.”
νόμοι θεοῦ = “laws of/from God” or “God’s laws”
λόγος θεοῦ = “word of/from God” or “God’s word”
υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου = “son of man” or “a man’s son”
δόξα ἡλίου = “glory of the sun” or “the sun’s glory”
Do not think of all genitives as indicating ownership or even the equivalent of the English possessive case; some are, some are not. The Greek genitive case is not the equivalent to possession or ownership, though it includes those meanings among its various functions. In other words, these ideas are a subset of the larger category called genitive, as the following examples illustrate:
τὴν παραβολὴν τῶν ζιζανίων = the parable of the weeds
This refers not to the parable that belongs to the weeds but to the parable about the weeds.
ἡμέρα ὀργῆς = the day of wrath
The day does not belong to wrath; it is rather the day that is characterized by wrath.
τῷ φόβῳ τοῦ κυρίου = the fear of the Lord
This fear is not one that belongs to the Lord but is the fear that is appropriately directed toward the Lord.
All these genitives restrict the meaning of their head noun by describing it in some way.
a Metzger, Reminiscences of an Octogenarian, 23.
Not all nouns use -ου as the genitive ending. You will remember from the chart of case endings that you memorized in chapter 2 that there are several possible genitive endings. Study that chart, reproduced here, and notice that there are different genitive forms for each declension as well as for singular and plural.
First- and Second-Declension Case Endings
| 2nd Decl. (M/f) | 1st Decl. (F/m) | 2nd Decl. (N) | |
| NS | ος | α or η | ον |
| GS | ου | ας or ης | ου |
| DS | ῳ | ᾳ or ῃ | ῳ |
| AS | ον | αν or ην | ον |
| NP | οι | αι | α |
| GP | ων | ων | ων |
| DP | οις | αις | οις |
| AP | ους | ας | α |
3.6. Examples of the Genitive Case
| Mark 1:3, Ἑτοιμάσατε τὴν ὁδὸν κυρίου. | Prepare the way of the Lord. |
| Mark 1:14, ἦλθεν ὁ Ἰησοῦςa εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν κηρύσσων τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τοῦ θεοῦ. | Jesus came into Galilee preaching the good news from God. |
a Did you remember the spelling of Ἰησοῦς? (It is one of the vocabulary words for this chapter.) What case is it? Check your lexicon if you are not sure. There is also a very helpful context clue in this verse. |
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| Mark 2:10, ἐξουσίαν ἔχει ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. | The Son of Man has authority. |
| Mark 1:1, Ἀρχὴ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ | The beginning of the good news about Jesus Christ |
In this last example, two genitives appear in succession, each one modifying the word before it. The first genitive, τοῦ εὐαγγελίου, modifies ἀρχή—it is the beginning of the good news; the second, Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, modifies τοῦ εὐαγγελίου—the good news is about Jesus Christ.
You might have noticed that in two of the examples above, the word εὐαγγέλιον occurs with a genitive following it. In the first example, Mark 1:14, I suggested an English gloss “good news from God,” but in the second, Mark 1:1, the gloss is “the good news about Jesus Christ.” This illustrates the flexible range of the genitive case. In each occurrence you must ask, What does the context suggest as the meaning or relationship between the genitive noun and the head noun? You may sometimes disagree with my judgments, and that is fine so long as you can explain from the context why you think it should be different. Sometimes it is just a different way to express the meaning in English; other times it might imply an alternate meaning.
| Gen. 1:11, εἶπεν ὁ θεός, Βλαστησάτω ἡ γῆ βοτάνην χόρτου. | God said, “Let the earth produce pasture of grass [i.e., grass pastures, or pastures filled with grass].” |
| Gen. 2:6, πηγὴ ἐπότιζεν τὸ πρόσωπον τῆς γῆς. | A spring watered the surface of the earth. |
Lexical Form
3.7. The lexical form of every noun is always given in the same format: θρόνος, ου, ὁ, “throne.” The four pieces of this entry tell you the following:
The nominative singular form is θρόνος.
The ending for the genitive case is -ου, thus the genitive form is θρόνου.
The article is ὁ, which is the masculine article; therefore the word θρόνος is in the masculine gender.
The gloss for this word (a simple English equivalent) is “throne.”
What is the equivalent information for these two words?
ἁμαρτία, ας, ἡ, “sin”
εὐαγγέλιον, ου, τό, “good news”
The article in the lexical entry is important. It is the only way to find out the gender of a noun. Masculine nouns will always be listed in the lexicon with the masculine singular article ὁ following the genitive ending. Feminine nouns will have the feminine singular article ἡ and neuter words have the neuter singular article τό.
The genitive ending in the lexical entry is important because some words have different patterns of endings; for example, first-declension words may have either an alpha or an eta. (This will be even more important later, especially in the third declension—another set of endings we will meet in chap. 11.) You can always tell which alternate is used by knowing the nominative and genitive forms (which is why they are included in the lexical form). First-declension forms have three possible ending patterns: all alphas (α), all etas (η), or an α-η-η-α pattern.
ἁμαρτία, ας, ἡ, “sin” ► ἁμαρτία, ας, ᾳ, αν, αι, ων, αις, ας
ἀρχή, ης, ἡ, “beginning” ► ἀρχή, ης, ῃ, ην, αι, ων, αις, ας
δόξα, ης, ἡ, “glory” ► δόξα, ης, ῃ, αν, αι, ων, αις, ας
Open your lexicon and look up some of the nouns in the vocabulary lists for chapters 1 and 2. Look for the consistent format in the lexicon, and notice how the article and genitive ending are listed in each instance. Then open to a random page in your lexicon, and see how many words you can identify as nouns based on the pattern shown in the lexical form. Do not worry about other things in the entries shown below that you do not understand, especially in the entry shown from BDAG; in due time you will learn what the other information means.
Shown below are images from three lexicons. Each shows the entry for the word θρόνος. Figure 3.1 shows the entry from Danker’s Concise Lexicon (p. 141).
Figure 3.1
3.8. Most Greek lexicons do not mark the part of speech explicitly, though it is always possible to determine the part of speech if you know the conventions used; we will learn them later. Figure 3.2 shows what the entry for θρόνος looks like in an unabridged lexicon, BDAG (p. 460). This is the standard tool for exegesis in the NT. There is far more information here than you can handle at this point, but it will hint at some of the riches that lie ahead. For now, skim the entire entry, but focus primarily on the first portion of the first line, and compare it with the other samples included here.
Figure 3.2
Most lexicons use the standard system for indicating gender as illustrated in figures 3.1 and 3.2, but a few tools indicate the gender of nouns in a different way. If you were using one of the lexicons that follow this pattern, you would find not the article as a gender marker but an m, f, or n (for masculine, feminine, or neuter).
| Standard Form | Alternate Form | ||
| θρόνος, ου, ὁ, “throne” | θρόνος, ου m | ||
| ἁμαρτία, ας, ἡ, “sin” | ἁμαρτία, ας f | ||
| εὐαγγέλιον, ου, τό, “good news” | εὐαγγέλιον, ου n | ||
An example of this alternate format is found in Louw and Nida’s lexicon (LN; see fig. 3.3).[8]
Figure 3.3
3.9. The dative case is used to express various relationships within a sentence. The function of the dative case in expressing syntactical relationships is quite varied. A word in the dative case often functions as an indirect object or the object of some prepositions. It is sometimes a direct object (more on that later) and may also indicate advantage or disadvantage, instrument, means, or reference. (Do not try to memorize this list of uses; the list is intended only to give you some idea of what to expect in the examples below.) When you encounter a dative-case word in a sentence, you should think, what sort of relationship is being expressed in this context? Sometimes to put this into English, we make the dative-case noun into the object of an English preposition such as to, for, with, in, on, at, or by.
Like the genitive, the dative is formed by adding a special ending to the stem of the word. Review the case ending chart once again, this time focusing on the dative forms.
First- and Second-Declension Case Endings
| 2nd Decl. (M/f) | 1st Decl. (F/m) | 2nd Decl. (N) | |
| NS | ος | α or η | ον |
| GS | ου | ας or ης | ου |
| DS | ῳ | ᾳ or ῃ | ῳ |
| AS | ον | αν or ην | ον |
| NP | οι | αι | α |
| GP | ων | ων | ων |
| DP | οις | αις | οις |
| AP | ους | ας | α |
There is always an iota in a dative case ending, subscripted in the singular, written on the line in the plural. Other than the nominative plural, these are the only noun endings that have an iota, so it is an important parsing clue. If a word is a noun and it has an iota subscript in the ending, it must be in the dative case.
3.10. Examples of the Dative Case
| John 5:22, ὁ [θεὸς] τὴν κρίσιν δέδωκεν τῷ υἱῷ. | God has given the Son judgment (or, God has given judgment to the Son). |
The direct object (what is given) is judgment (τὴν κρίσιν). That action—the giving of judgment (that is, the authority and responsibility to exercise judgment)—is done in relation to the Son; that is, τῷ υἱῷ is the indirect object.
| Mark 6:41, κατέκλασεν τοὺς ἄρτους καὶ ἐδίδου τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ. | He broke the loaves of bread, and he gave [the pieces] to his disciples. |
| Rom. 6:2, ἀπεθάνομεν τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ. | We died to sin. |
This dative is not an indirect object, nor can it be a direct object, since the verb ἀπεθάνομεν (“we died”) does not take a direct object (that is, it is intransitive). This use of the dative is sometimes called a dative of reference: we died with reference to sin.
Sin is usually taken as an abstract concept in this statement, so the article is not translated. If you thought it referred to the sinful nature, then you might translate it “we died to the sin [nature]”—but that is an exegetical question.
| John 21:8, οἱ μαθηταὶ τῷ πλοιαρίῳ ἦλθον. | The disciples came in the boat. |
| Acts 12:2, ἀνεῖλεν δὲ Ἰάκωβον τὸν ἀδελφὸν Ἰωάννου μαχαίρῃ. | He killed James the brother of John with a sword. |
| Gen. 3:6, εἶδεν ἡ γυνὴ ὅτι καλὸν [was] τὸ ξύλον καὶ ὅτι [it was] ἀρεστὸν τοῖς ὀφθαλμοῖς. | The woman saw that the tree was good and that it was pleasing to the eyes. |
| Gen. 4:15, ἔθετο κύριος ὁ θεὸς σημεῖον τῷ Κάϊν. | The Lord God placed a sign on Cain. |
| Gen. 8:20, ᾠκοδόμησεν Νῶε θυσιαστήριον τῷ θεῷ. | Noah built an altar to God. |
3.11. In the reading exercises for this chapter, since you have so few pieces of the language to work with, I have given you simple verses from the NT in English with only the words in Greek that you should know or can figure out with your lexicon. If you understand the case and function of these Greek words, they will fit into the English sentence given and make good sense. For each one, ask yourself, How is this word functioning in the sentence? Is it the subject? The object? A modifier? An indirect object? Be sure you can explain why based on the case of the Greek word, not on what the English says. Some of these are very familiar verses, but do not rely on what you may have memorized to explain what it means. The word order has been modified and some words omitted to make it manageable for you.
| Mark 6:13, They cast out many δαιμόνια καί anointed many ἀρρώστους ἐλαίῳ. | |
| John 1:29, Behold ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ who takes away τὴν ἁμαρτίαν τοῦ κόσμου. | |
| John 1:51, You will see τὸν οὐρανόν opened καὶ τοὺς ἀγγέλους τοῦ θεοῦ ascending and descending on τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. | |
| Rom. 2:13, οἱ ἀκροαταὶ νόμου will not be justified, ἀλλ’ οἱ ποιηταὶ νόμου. | |
Both nominative nouns in this example from Rom. 2:13 have an unusual set of endings. When you identify them in your lexicon, they will both have a lexical form that ends with -ής, οῦ, ὁ. The nominative ending given in the lexicon, -ής (remember that all nouns are listed alphabetically in the lexicon in the nominative singular form, so this must be a nominative ending), does not match the chart you have learned. It looks like a genitive ending (first declension, eta pattern), but it is not. There are not many words that do this. The key to identifying them is the lexical entry, or for the more common words in this small group, memorizing the full entry given in the vocabulary lists. That is, do not memorize just “μαθητής, disciple” (one of the vocabulary words in this chapter), but be sure to learn “μαθητής, οῦ, ὁ, ‘disciple.’” See the “Vocabulary Notes” in this chapter for more information.
Now You Try It
3.12. This time the words have been left in their original order, and for words you do not know, an English equivalent has been inserted in parentheses immediately after that word or else added in a note when it refers to word clusters. You will need to identify the function of each remaining word based on its case. Do not guess by what you think makes sense! If you identify the case correctly, you will be able to explain what it means. The questions appended to each statement are designed to help you test your understanding. Some sentences have been adapted and do not read exactly as they do in the original text. If you were to write out a translation, you would need to rearrange the sentence into English word order (subject ► verb ► object) to make sense.
| Matt. 3:3, Ἑτοιμάσατε (Prepare!)a τὴν ὁδὸν κυρίου. | The subject of this verb is assumed in English, since it is an imperative; the Greek form tells you that it is a plural “you.” What are they to prepare? How is ὁδόν described? |
a In the examples given in this textbook, an exclamation mark following a parenthetical English gloss is used to indicate that the word is an imperative (a command word). Ordinarily, you would not use that mark if you were putting the statement into English. |
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| Matt. 2:19, ἰδοὺ ἄγγελος κυρίου φαίνεται (appeared) τῷ Ἰωσήφ. | Who appeared? How do you know? What case is the last word, and how do you know? Why is it in this case? |
| Mark 3:3, λέγει (he said) τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ, Ἔγειρε (stand up!). | What case is ἀνθρώπῳ, and why did Mark use that case? |
| Mark 4:33, παραβολαῖς ἐλάλει (he spoke) αὐτοῖς τὸν λόγον. | What case is παραβολαῖς, and how would you express the meaning in English? αὐτοῖς is a pronoun that you have not learned yet, but with your lexicon you can figure it out (if you are using CL, see entry 2.b. under this word), or you can jump ahead to chapter 4. |
| 1 John 2:15, Μὴ ἀγαπᾶτεa τὸν κόσμον. ἐάν τις ἀγαπᾷb τὸν κόσμον, οὐκ ἔστινc ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ [θεοῦ] ἐν αὐτῷ.d | The word κόσμον occurs twice in this verse; both times it functions the same way. What is the relation between this word and the others in the same clause? In the last clause (after the comma), how does ἀγάπη function? How is this ἀγάπη described? |
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a Μὴ ἀγαπᾶτε, “Do not love!” b ἐάν τις ἀγαπᾷ, “If anyone loves” c οὐκ ἔστιν, “(it) is not” d ἐν αὐτῷ, “in him” |
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| Gen. 3:8, ἤκουσαν (they heard) τὴν φωνὴν κυρίου. | What did they hear? How do you know? How is φωνήν described? |
| Ps. 1:6, γινώσκει (he knows) κύριος ὁδὸν δικαίων. | δικαίων is actually an adjective, not a noun, but it acts like a noun here. So long as you know that it means “righteous,” you can understand it. Who knows (γινώσκει)? How do you know that he knows (i.e., grammatically)? What does he know? How is ὁδόν described? |
| Gen. 9:8–9, εἶπεν (said) ὁ θεὸς τῷ Νῶε καὶ τοῖς υἱοῖς αὐτοῦ, Ἐγὼ ἰδοὺ ἀνίστημι (am establishing) τὴν διαθήκην μου ὑμῖν (with you). | Who is speaking, and to whom is the speaking directed? Why is Ἐγώ capitalized? Who is doing the “establishing,” and what is being established? How is διαθήκην described? What case is ὑμῖν, and why is it in that case? |
| Mark 2:15, τελῶναι καὶ ἁμαρτωλοὶ συνανέκειντο (were reclining) τῷ Ἰησοῦ καὶ τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ. | What declension is τελῶναι? What gender, number, case?a What case is Ἰησοῦ? What context clue tells you this might not be a genitive-case noun?b What sort of relationship do the two dative-case nouns in this sentence express? How would you express this in English? |
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a See the “Vocabulary Notes” for this chapter; this word follows the same pattern as μαθητής. b The forms of Ἰησοῦς do not follow the normal patterns; this is not uncommon with personal names. See the “Vocabulary Notes” on Ἰησοῦς at the end of this chapter for the endings. |
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Advanced Information for Reference:
Grammatical Diagramming
3.14. You will find grammatical diagrams throughout the book. They visually illustrate the grammatical relationships of the various constructions that you are learning. You will find them in each chapter where you learn a new feature that can be illustrated in this way. The first example uses a sentence that you read in “Now You Try It” above.
| Matt. 2:19, ἰδοὺ ἄγγελος κυρίου φαίνεται (appeared) τῷ Ἰωσήφ. | Behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph. |
Figure 3.4
The basic structure of a grammatical diagram arranges the kernel of the sentence on a baseline, separating the subject and verb by a vertical line. Modifiers are placed on an angle bracket under the word they describe. As shown in figure 3.4, genitives that modify a noun (or pronoun) use the oblique angle bracket; datives that function as an indirect object allow the base of the angle bracket to protrude to the left.
3.15. In the following passage all the words or forms that you have not yet learned have been identified the first time they occur. All the other words are ones that you should be able to recognize or to identify with your lexicon. You will not understand all the nuances of this text at this point, but you already know enough to make good sense of the message communicated. (You read this passage in the last chapter; now you can understand more of it.)
The Word Was in the Beginning
1Ἐν (in) ἀρχῇ ἦν (was) ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς (with) τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. 2οὗτος (he) ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν. 3πάντα (all things) δι᾿ (through) αὐτοῦ (him) ἐγένετο (came into being), καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἓνa ὃ (which) γέγονεν (exists). 4ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν, καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων· 5καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει (shines), καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτὸ (it) οὐ κατέλαβεν (has overcome).
a οὐδὲ ἕν, “nothing”
Repeated Words
αὐτοῦ or αὐτῷ, “him”
ἐγένετο, “came into being”
ἐν, “in”
ἦν, “was”[9]
πρός, “with”
Notes and Study Questions
In verses 1–2 the verb ἦν occurs four times, and it occurs twice more in verse 4. What is its subject in each instance? How do you know?
The last instance of ἦν in verse 1 has two words in the nominative case. What grammatical feature distinguishes their function in the sentence?[10]
Which word in verse 4 is genitive, and why does John use this case?
Who or what is trying to “overcome” (κατέλαβεν) in verse 5? How do you know?
3.16. Vocabulary for Chapter 3
| Part of Speech | Definition | Possible Glosses | Frequency | |
| Word | NT | LXX | ||
| Conjunctions | ||||
| ἀλλά (spelled ἀλλ’ before a vowel) | An adversative coordinating conjunction most often used following a negative statement to suggest a contrasting statement or view or to explain | but, yet, except | 638 | 557 |
| οὖν | An inferential or sequence marker (postpositive, coordinating conjunction) used to indicate a conclusion drawn from preceding information or to mark a stage of narrative development | then, therefore | 499 | 260 |
| Nouns | ||||
| Ἰησοῦς, οῦ, ὁ | Personal name used of various individuals, in the NT most commonly Jesus Christ [See the “Vocabulary Notes.”] | Jesus, Joshua | 917 | 272 |
| ἡμέρα, ας, ἡ | A period of time of varying length, whether a twenty-four-hour day, the period from sunrise to sunset, or a longer period of time during which something happens | day | 389 | 2,567 |
| μαθητής, οῦ, ὁ | One who learns under the instruction of a teacher, whether with committed attachment (“disciple”) or less formally (“student, pupil”) [See the “Vocabulary Notes.”] | disciple; student | 261 | 0 |
| γῆ, ῆς, ἡ | The earth (i.e., the planet on which we live) or figuratively of the people who live there; some part of the earth, whether a region/land, or the soil | land, earth, region, soil | 250 | 3,154 |
| ἄγγελος, ου, ὁ | A personal being (human or supernatural) who transmits a message on behalf of another | messenger, angel | 175 | 350 |
| ὄχλος, ου, ὁ | A group of people, usually consisting of a large number of such | crowd, multitude | 175 | 55 |
| ἁμαρτία, ας, ἡ | A volitional choice or act contrary to (usually God’s) standards of uprightness, which results in liability/guilt | sin | 173 | 545 |
| ἔργον, ου, τό | That which is done, an activity (“work”) or the result of activity (“product”); more generally, “thing, matter” | work, deed, action, task; thing, matter | 169 | 590 |
| δόξα, ης, ἡ | Esteem, either an intrinsic characteristic or an attribution of it; a splendid/magnificent display, seen as a visible brightness/radiance or, metaphorically, as worthy character [See the “Vocabulary Notes.”] | glory, majesty, fame, brightness | 166 | 453 |
| βασιλεία, ας, ἡ | The act of ruling; the realm over which that rule is exercised; especially God’s reign in fulfillment of promises to Israel | kingdom, kingship | 162 | 447 |
| Παῦλος, ου, ὁ | A personal name; in the NT usually of the apostle Paul | Paul | 158 | 0 |
| ὥρα, ας, ἡ | Period of time as one division of a day, a term used roughly as our “hour” (both having various degrees of precision); an undefined time reference that may be relatively short; a particular time when something is to happen | hour, occasion, moment, time | 106 | 74 |
| γραφή, ῆς, ἡ | That which is written; in the NT used exclusively as a designation of the OT, “Scripture”; outside the NT it can refer to other written documents | writing, Scripture | 50 | 50 |
3.17. Some of these vocabulary words are worth examining more closely.
δόξα, ης, ἡ, glory
Did you notice that the format of this entry is different when compared with the other vocabulary words on the list? The other nouns in the list have the more “usual” endings. According to the lexical entry, what is the genitive form?
The paradigm for δόξα has the hybrid α-η-η-α pattern of endings in the singular:
| NS | δόξα | NP | δόξαι |
| GS | δόξης | GP | δοξῶν |
| DS | δόξῃ | DP | δόξαις |
| AS | δόξαν | AP | δόξας |
Similar words that occur 10 or more times in the NT include the following:
| δόξα, ης, ἡ, “glory” | 166× |
| θάλασσα, ης, ἡ, “sea” | 91× |
| γλῶσσα, ης, ἡ, “tongue” | 50× |
| μάχαιρα, ης, ἡ, “sword” | 29× |
| ῥίζα, ης, ἡ, “root” | 17× |
| τράπεζα, ης, ἡ, “table” | 15× |
| ἄκανθα, ης, ἡ, “thorn” | 14× |
Many other words that use this pattern are hapax legomena (ἅπαξ λεγόμενα, “once spoken,” that is, words that occur only once in the NT or in the LXX). They are often called hapax for short. Many are also proper names.
μαθητής, οῦ, ὁ, disciple
3.18. The word μαθητής, “disciple,” is found 261 times in the NT; it is not found in the LXX. Note the lexical form in the vocabulary list for this chapter: μαθητής, οῦ, ὁ. This is an unusual pattern of endings. You can tell from the lexical form that something strange is happening, since the nominative and genitive endings do not match any of the patterns that you have learned. This word is declined like this:
| NS | μαθητής | NP | μαθητάι |
| GS | μαθητοῦ | GP | μαθητῶν |
| DS | μαθητῇ | DP | μαθηταῖς |
| AS | μαθητήν | AP | μαθητάς |
In later chapters you will meet two more words that use this unusual pattern of endings: προφήτης (144×) and Ἰωάννης (135×). These are all first-declension masculine nouns. The best thing to do is just memorize them—and be sure you are memorizing the entire lexical form, including the genitive ending and the article. Despite their oddity, you need to learn them early since they occur so frequently in the NT. One of the most helpful parsing aids for these words is the article, since that never changes spelling from its standard forms. Not all instances of μαθητής, προφήτης, and Ἰωάννης have an article, but many do. (For μαθητής, approximately 240 of the 261 instances in the NT do have the article. For προφήτης it is more than 90 of 144, but for Ἰωάννης, only 33 of 135.)
Ἰησοῦς, οῦ, ὁ, Jesus, Joshua
3.19. Names sometimes have an unusual set of endings, especially those that are transliterated from Hebrew into Greek. Ἰησοῦς is one such name. It occurs 272 times in the LXX, usually as the Greek name for Joshua. In the NT it occurs 917 times, mostly (but not always) as the personal name of Jesus the Messiah (Ἰησοῦς Χριστός). The ending shown in the lexical form does not match any of the forms you have learned. It looks like an accusative plural ending, but it is, indeed, nominative. The case endings are as follows:
| NS | Ἰησοῦς | ||
| GS | Ἰησοῦ | ||
| DS | Ἰησοῦ | ||
| AS | Ἰησοῦν | ||
| VS | Ἰησοῦ | ||
There are two ways to determine whether an -οῦ ending is a genitive, a dative, or a vocative[11]: first, the article (if one is used) will always distinguish genitive from dative (there is no vocative article), or second, context. Whenever a word has “oddities” such as this, the lexicon will give you the necessary information to identify the various forms.
3.20. Key Things to Know for Chapter 3
Can you identify the Greek genitive and dative forms?
How does a genitive-case noun function in Greek?
What are the most common English equivalents for the genitive?
What word does a Greek genitive noun usually modify?
What is a “lexical form”?
How does a dative-case noun function in Greek?
What are the most common English equivalents for the dative?