Matt. 8:9 responses to commands
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Mon Oct 14 23:37:41 EDT 2002
Forwarded for George Somsel <Polycarp66 at aol.com>
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2002 21:45:55 EDT
In a message dated 10/13/2002 9:09:38 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
emory2oo2 at hotmail.com writes:
>KAI GAR EGW ANQRWPOS EIMI hUPO EXOUSIAN, EXWN hUPÄô EMAUTON STRATIWTAS,
>KAI LEGW TOUTWi, POREUQHTI, KAI POREUETAI, KAI ALLWi, ERCOU, KAI ERCETAI,
>KAI Twi DOULWi MOU,POIHSON TOUTO,KAI POIEI.
>Can anyone give me the sense of these Imperatives and why the
>responses are portrayed as they are?
>1. Why the Aorist Passive POREUQHTI answered with a Present Middle Ind.
>2. Present Middle ERCOU answered with a Present Middle ERCETAI,
>3. Aorist Active POIHSON answered with a Present Active POIEI?
I'm not sure that we can strictly speek of POREUQHTI as a passive.¬Ý It is
a true deponent verb.¬Ý Robertson, p. 817 notes
"The so-called passive 'deponents,' verbs which had no active, formed the
aorist with the passive form.¬Ý But they were not always intransitive.¬Ý
Some of them were so, like POREUOMAI (Mt. 8:9), METAMELOMAI (Mt. 27:3),
DUNAMAI (Mt. 17:16), but most of them are really transitive.¬Ý They
probably represent a survival of the old active origin of the aorist
In keeping with the aorist mood and its view of things as a puntiliar event
(note that I said 'view' ,not that the event itself is puntiliar), we might
translate it as "'Be gone!' -- and he goes".
That the present middle ERXOU is followed by a present middle ERXETAI
should not be particularly surprising.
That the aorist active POIHSON is followed by the present active would seem
to be similar to 1. above.¬Ý "'Get this done' -- and he does it."¬Ý The
idea is that what he wants is the completed action.¬Ý What he gets is the
execution of the process necessary to accomplish it.
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