λέγει αὐτοῖς· ἔρχεσθε καὶ ὄψεσθε (John 1:39)

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Title: He Said to Them, “You Come and You Will See.”

The text is, “λέγει αὐτοῖς· ἔρχεσθε καὶ ὄψεσθε ἦλθαν οὖν καὶ εἶδαν ποῦ μένει καὶ παρ’ αὐτῷ ἔμειναν τὴν ἡμέραν ἐκείνην ὥρα ἦν ὡς δεκάτ”.

λέγει -> third person, present, active, indicative verb -> he says CER* he said

αὐτοῖς -> second person, personal, masculine, plural, dative pronoun -> to them

ἔρχεσθε -> second person, plural, present, middle, imperative verb -> you come

καὶ -> coordinating conjunction -> and

ὄψεσθε -> second person, plural, future, middle, indicative verb -> you will see

ἦλθαν -> third person, plural, aorist, active, indicative verb -> they came

οὖν -> coordinating inferential conjunction -> so

καὶ -> coordinating additive conjunction -> and

εἶδαν -> third person, plural, aorist, active, indicative verb -> saw

ποῦ -> particle -> where

μένει -> third person, singular, active, indicative verb -> he stays CER he stayed

καὶ -> coordinating additive conjunction -> and

παρ’’ -> preposition taking the dative for its object word, and -> with

αὐτῷ -> third person, personal, masculine, singular, dative pronoun -> him

ἔμειναν -> third person, plural, aorist, active, indicative verb -> stayed

τὴν -> feminine, singular, accusative article -> the NRIEH**

ἡμέραν -> feminine, singular, accusative noun -> day

ἐκείνην -> feminine, singular, accusative pronoun -> that

ὥρα -> feminine, singular, nominative noun -> hour

ἦν -> third person, singular, perfect, indicative verb -> it was

ὡς -> indefinite particle -> about

δεκάτη -> feminine, singular, nominative, ordinal adjective -> the tenth

The meaning of this verse is,

He said to them, “You come and you will see,” so they came and saw where he stayed that day.  It was about the tenth hour.

*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”.

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CC BY 4.0 λέγει αὐτοῖς· ἔρχεσθε καὶ ὄψεσθε (John 1:39) by Dennis Glover is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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