Heb.1:8

Iver Larsen iver_larsen at sil.org
Thu May 17 13:27:29 EDT 2001


> QEOS is indeed in the nominative case; you are not mistaken.  However, there
> is a syntactical category called the "nominative for vocative" (Wallace,
> "Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, 56) or the "nominative instead of
> vocative" (BDF, 81).  In a nutshell, what has happened as the language
> changed is that the nominative was beginning to be used in place of the
> vocative (see BDF, 81, section 147), which is what some will say is
> happening here.
>
> I don't know if the vocative case form ever occurs with the article, but the
> nominative for vocative does (for possible examples -- Mark 5:8; Luke 8:54;
> John 19:3; Eph 5:22; John 20:28).
>
> Eric Sowell

Just to add to Eric's point.
The vocative form for "God" - QEE is very rare in the GNT. It only occurs in Matt 27,46
(twice) according to my search program. The nominative form hO QEOS - always with the
article - is used as a vocative 12 times, three of these are in Hebrews.

Iver Larsen




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