[B-Greek] TAPEINWQHTE in James 4:10
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Thu Sep 2 13:03:30 EDT 2004
At 4:52 PM +0100 9/2/04, Andrew Chapman wrote:
>TAPEINWQHTE ENWPION TOU KURIOU KAI UYWSEI hUMAS.
>
>Why is this almost always translated 'Humble yourselves before the
>Lord...' rather than 'Be humbled before the Lord...', which makes equally
>good sense. If James meant 'Humble yourselves...', would he not have used
>the middle form?
>
>I note that Young's Literal Translation has 'Be made low before the Lord...'.
For most verbs in the Koine era, the -QH- forms function to indicate both
middle and passive; the grammars don't tell you this although the lexica
may indicate something like "passive with active sense"; BDAG notes
TAPEINOUSQAI 3: "humble oneself, become humble" You will find no aorist
middle form of this verb in the Koine, not in the GNT at any rate, and both
instances of this aorist "passive" imperative TAPEINWQHTE, Jas 4:10 and 1
Peter 5:6 should be understood as middles.
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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