Bill Mounce

For an Informed Love of God

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Thursday, March 3, 2022

The Hunt for the Missing Words (Matt 5:19)

Matthew 5:19 illustrates several aspects of Greek. Perhaps the most interesting is how Greek can drop words out of the second half of a sentence that is parallel in structure. But it also shows the different meanings of οὕτως, and how a long clause can be the subject of the verb and also have it repeated with a demonstrative pronoun. I still remember in second grade a poster of a man with two hats, and the caption said, "The man he." That's poor English, but acceptable Greek, perhaps good Greek.