We found that verses started to make more sense to us when we began to unpack how Greek nouns worked with respect to case (nominative, genitive, etc.) and number. We will find that verses make even more sense once we figure out how Greek verbs work.
In a moment, we will think about how verbs work in English. But first, let's take a little detour to talk about Greek lexicons (i.e. Ancient Greek-English dictionaries).
In using BibleHub, you have run into Thayer's lexicon before. It was considered an outstanding piece of scholarship...130 years ago. There are two major problems with Thayer.
- He had the poor fortune to finish his work just before Hunt and Grenfell discovered the treasure trove of Greek papyrii at an archaeological dig in Egypt. These documents (which number in the hundreds of thousands) have opened a window for us into first century Greek. We know a lot more about the meaning of NT Greek words than we knew when Thayer created his lexicon.
- Thayer was a Unitarian, and allowed his theology to seep into his treatment of words. For instance, if you go to https://biblehub.com/greek/5207.htm you will see in Thayer's whole discussion of the Greek word for "son" he NEVER ONCE alludes to one of the key uses of the word "son" in the NT. That is, he has nothing to say about Jesus as the Son of God, nor anything at all about the deity of Jesus. Unitarians believe that Jesus was definitely not God incarnate.
It would be the case that BDAG (the current best-option as a Greek lexicon) also lets theology seep into its definitions, but because the editors were actually Believers, their definitions are a good bit more helpful to us today.You can click to see a short history of Greek lexicons, from the Renaissance period to today.
A verb is a word that describes action or state of being.
- I wrote about everything. (Acts 1:1 action.)
- God is love. (I John 4:8 state of being.)
There are three persons: first, second, and third.
- First person is the person speaking ("I", "we").
- I am the light of the world (John 8:12).
- We are about to die (Matt. 8:25)
- Second person is the person being spoken to ("you").
- You are the salt of the earth (Matt. 5:13).
- Third person is everything else ("he", "she", "it", "they", "book")
- He is the one about whom it has been written (Matt. 11:10).
Number refers to whether a verb is singular (referring to one thing) or plural (referring to more than one thing).
- I am pleased (Matt. 3:17).
- They are sinners (Matt. 9:13).
A verb must agree with its subject in person and number. This means that if a subject is singular, the verb must be singular. If the subject is third person, the verb must be third person.
For example, you would not say "Bill say to the class that there are no test." Since "Bill" and "test" are singular, you would say, "Bill says to the class that there is no test." The presence or absence of the "s" at the end of "says" is an example of agreement in English.
You also would not say, "I were here." "I" is singular but "were" is plural. You would say "I was here."
Time refers to when the action of the verb takes place. In English the different "times" are past, present, and future.
Tense in English refers to both the time when the action of the verb takes place, and the form of the word.
- If you study your Greek right now, then the verb is in the present tense ("I study"). In the sentence, "I see the ball," the verb "see" is in the present tense and indicates an action occurring in the present time.
- If you are planning on doing it tomorrow, then the verb is in the future tense ("I will study"). English forms the future with the helping verbs "will/shall".
- If you did it last night, then the verb is in the past tense ("I studied"). English often forms the simpled past tense by adding "-ed" to the verb ("study" to "studied").
The time of the verb is from the standpoint of the speaker/weriter, not the reader. What is present to the biblical writer may or may not be present to us.
Aspect is not the same as tense although it is related to it.
What is the difference between saying "I studied last night" and "I was studying last night"?
- The first sentence — "I studied last night" — says that an event was completed last night. It does not give you a clue as to the precise nature of your study time other than it was accomplished. It views the event as a completed whole. This is called the completed aspect. It is usually used of events in the past.
- The second sentence — "I was studying last night" — describes the studying as an ongoing action, a process, something that took place over a period of time. This is called the continuous aspect.
In English, the continuous aspect is formed with "helping" words ("I am eating; I was eating").Aspect can be designated in the different times.
- Present: I study
- Past: I studied
- Future: I will study
- Present: I am studying
- Past: I was studying
- Future: I will be studying
Mood is a bit of a catch-all category in Greek grammar. Three of the moods refer to the relationship between the verb and reality.
A verb is in the indicative if it is describing something that is. Indicative verbs make statements or ask questions about reality.
- You are blessed if people insult you. (Matt. 5:11)
- Are you not worth much more than them? (Matt. 6:26)
In both of these sentences, "are" is in the indicative mood.
A verb is in the subjunctive mood (much less common than indicative in the NT) or optative mood (even more uncommon) if it deals in hypotheticals — expressing a possibility or probablility.
We will run into our first subjunctive-mood verb in Acts 2:21. So we will wait until then to talk about the subjunctive.
We will have to wait until Acts 8:20 to run into our first optative-mood verb. We will wait to address this mood as well.
The imperative mood expresses a command. We will run into one of these soon, in Acts 1:20. The disciples want to choose a new leader to replace Judas in their company of 12, and have narrowed it down to two people. They are praying that God would give them insight and they say:
"Show us which of these two you have chosen."
The verb "Show" is in the imperative in this verse.
Minor point: Imperative verbs occur in both the present and aorist tenses...but these are unrelated to time. Imperative verbs are pretty obvious when it comes to translating them. You will not need to concern yourself with whether you are seeing a "present imperative" or an "aorist imperative".
It is easy to recognize an infinitive in English, as the verb is preceded by the word "to". We ran into this in our very first verse, Acts 1:1.
- The things Jesus began to do and to teach.
Infinitives can sometimes be used to turn a verb into an adjective. Don't worry about this now. I will point it out to you when it happens in the text.
Participles are an enormously common and versatile tool in biblical Greek, allowing verbs to be used:
- like an "-ing" type verb, such as "eating", "sleeping", "procrastinating"
- like an adjective
- "The woman, sitting by the window, is my Greek teacher." In this example "sitting" is a participle that tells us something about the noun "woman". Out of all the women in the room, the participle specifies which woman.
- like an adverb
- "While eating, my Greek teacher gave us the final." In this example, "eating" is a participle that tells us something about the verb "gave". "While" is an adverb that specifies when the action of the participle occurred.
- in partnership with a genitive noun to make up a parenthetical phrase.
Participles are unlike the other moods, in that a participle can have gender and case as well as number, and so can agree with nouns that they are connected with.
We will run into participles in virtually every verse we translate. I will help you get a feel for them over the coming weeks and months.
Go to the next page by clicking to practice with these concepts.