Rev 18:20

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat Jun 19 07:16:36 EDT 1999


At 8:26 AM -0400 6/17/99, Moon-Ryul Jung wrote:
>Dear B-Greekers,
>
>Linda asked:
>
>What would be the best rendering of Revelation 18:20:
>
>"You be happy over her heaven and the holy ones and the apostles and the
>prophets, because God has given judgment for you against her"
>
>OR,
>
>"You be happy over her heaven and the holy ones and the apostles and the
>prophets, because God has judged her with the judgment from you."
>
>Ben responded to the question, but it seemed to miss the point.
>
>The question is about the translation of the "because clause":
>hOTI EKRINEN hO QEOS TO KRIMA hUMWN EX AUTHS.
>Literally it says:
>God judged your judgement from her.
>
>Some translated it as
>God judged your judgement against her.
>It seems to make sense.
>So, here we have two questions.
>(1) Can EX mean AGAINST?
>(2) What does "KRINW TO KRIMA hUMWN"?

I see that this is still open, so I'll try to bring some closure to the
question; it does involve some less-than-common usage, perhaps akin to
other usage that we find in Revelation (I do NOT want to re-open the 'bad
Greek' question!).

The whole text: EUFRAINOU EP' AUTHi, OURANE KAI hOI hAGIOI KAI hOI
APOSTOLOI KAI hOI PROFHTAI, hOTI EKRINEN hO QEOS TO KRIMA hUMWN EX AUTHS.

I'll take the questions hUSTERON PROTERON since they seem to be in the
reverse of logical order:

(2) I think that EKRINEN TO KRIMA hUMWN is an instance of the 'cognate
accusative' like English "see the sights" or "read the
readings/lessons"--except that the English equivalent here is not really a
'cognate' but rather something like "decide a case" or "settle a
grievance": so "God has decided your case" or "God has settled your
grievance." Louw & Nida:

56.20 KRINW; KRISIS, EWS f; KRIMA, TOS n: to decide a question of legal
right or wrong, and thus determine the innocence or guilt of the accused
and assign appropriate punishment or retribution - 'to decide a legal
question, to act as a judge, making a legal decision, to arrive at a
verdict, to try a case' (in the passive 'to stand trial').

--to which there's a footnote:  KRINW, KRISIS, and KRIMA  often appear in
contexts referring to the judgment of God, particularly in reference to the
so-called 'end times,' but the limited differences in semantic components
of meaning in contexts referring to God's judgment do not warrant setting
up a separate set of meanings.

(1) No, EK in this instance must mean (oddly) "with reference to", an
extraordinary extension of "arising from", i.e., it really does start out
as an ablatival genitive, but passes over into a semantic realm close to
what one expects with an accusative of respect or dative of respect. Again,
Louw and Nida:

90.16 EK  (with the genitive): a marker of the source of an activity or
state, with the implication of something proceeding from or out of the
source - 'from, by.' REBEKKA EX hENOS KOITHN ECOUSA, ISAAK TOU PATROS hUMWN
'Rebecca became pregnant by our forefather Isaac' Ro 9:10; OUTE ZHTOUNTES
EX ANQRWPWN DOXAN 'neither seeking praise from people' 1Th 2:6; hOTI
EKRINEN hO QEOS TO KRIMA hUMWN EX AUTHS  'because God condemned her for
what she did to you' Re 18:20.

Note that this translation is of the "dynamic equivalence" sort: it is good
English but there's no way to see in it what Greek text it is derived from
without having gone through the entire analysis of the two phrases in
question (KRINEIN TO KRIMA hUMWN and EX AUTHS).


Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
Summer: 1647 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
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