Ἔρχεται γυνὴ ἐκ τῆς Σαμαρείας (John 4:7)

The estimated reading time for this post is 100 seconds

Title -> A Woman of Samaria Came

The text is, Ἔρχεται γυνὴ ἐκ τῆς Σαμαρείας ἀντλῆσαι ὕδωρ. λέγει αὐτῇ ὁ Ἰησοῦς· δός μοι πεῖν

Ἔρχεται -> third person, singular, present, middle, indicative verb -> comes CER* came

γυνὴ -> feminine, singular, nominative noun -> a woman

ἐκ -> preposition taking the genitive or its object word -> from or of

τῆς -> feminine, singular, genitive article -> the NRIEH**

Σαμαρείας -> feminine, singular, genitive, proper noun -> Samaria

ἀντλῆσαι -> aorist, active, infinitive verb -> to draw

ὕδωρ -> neuter, singular, accusative noun -> water

λέγε -> third person, singular, present, active, indicative verb -> said

αὐτῇ -> third person, personal, feminine, singular, dative pronoun -> to her

ὁ -> masculine, singular, nominative article -> the NRIEH

Ἰησοῦς -> masculine, singular, nominative, proper noun -> Jesus

δός -> second person, singular, aorist, active, imperative verb -> give

μοι -> first person, personal, masculine, singular, dative pronoun -> to me

  πεῖν -> aorist, active, imperative verb -> to drink

The meaning of this verse is,

A woman of Samaria came to draw water.  Jesus said to her, Give me to drink.

*CER:  indicates a non-literal, but good translation.  In the first example here, the verb “ἔρχεται” is present tense, which in the indicative mood often can be rendered in the aorist tense, since it expresses linear action not in the present but at some point in the past.  The designation CER is equivalent to “Contextual English Rendering”.

**NRIEH:  For the sake of clarity the word is translated into English, but to avoid such odd constructions as applying a definite article (“the”) to a substantive sufficiently determined by its being a proper noun, or by the use of a qualifier other than the definite article. An example would be the basic translation “Peter said to the Jesus”; the word “the” is completely unnecessary. There are many examples of this in the New Testament. The designation NRIEH is equivalent to “Not Rendered Into English Here”.

CC BY 4.0 Ἔρχεται γυνὴ ἐκ τῆς Σαμαρείας (John 4:7) by Dennis Glover is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Post Navigation