[B-Greek] Third-person commands

Dr. Don Wilkins drdwilkins at sbcglobal.net
Wed Nov 9 14:43:24 EST 2005


Hi everybody,

I would appreciate input on an issue that's bugged me for some time,  
the possibility of a third-person command's being substituted for  
second-person permissive command. It's complicated, so I apologize in  
advance for taking considerable space to explain it. As a translator,  
I have to deal with the issue of what to do with "let" used in a  
third-person command. The problem is an old one: "let" is usually  
read as permission, which clashes with the idea of an imperative. We  
run into the same problem with Hebrew (the use of the jussive), which  
I'll use as a point of comparison. We're all familiar with "let"  
commands by deity (e.g. "Let there be light"), where "let" obviously  
can't be permission because God doesn't need permission to create.  
But where things get really thorny is in a passage like 1 Cor. 7:15:  
"...if the unbeliever leaves, let him leave...." I have always taken  
this to be a command to the unbeliever following the third-person  
grammar, and I still do, but I'll bet that 95% or more of the Greek- 
challenged English Bible readers see it as a command to the  
congregation to permit the fellow to leave. Maybe even some listers  
see it that way as well. To the latter I would suggest Matt. 27:42 as  
a grammatical parallel: "...let Him now come down from the cross, and  
we will believe in HIm." Clearly this command is not addressed to the  
crowd, asking their permission for Jesus to leave the cross, but is a  
derisive command or dare addressed to Jesus himself.

Now then, lately it occurred to me that there might be some grounds  
for the idea that a third-person imperative could be addressed to a  
superior from an inferior in the sense of a request. A good example  
would be the idea of a command addressed to God as a request. To  
illustrate this, consider a passage like Ps. 31:17: "...let the  
wicked be put to shame, let them be silent." Again, the "let" is  
problematic, but permission is not an option as an interpretation,  
and in fact the grammar is actually two commands (jussives) addressed  
to the wicked. I thought the LXX would have third-person imperatives  
here, but instead it has optatives, which makes sense and shows that  
the translators were aware of the grammatical issue. I don't know off- 
hand whether the LXX always handles the issue the same way, but I  
know that the translators paid attention to the context of these  
third-person commands, because in Gen. 1:3 they use the Greek  
imperative for "Let there be light." In this case it would be wrong  
to have the optative, "May there be light," because God is  
commanding, not wishing for it.

A passage like Ps. 31:17 finds its NT counterpart in such passages as  
Matt. 26:39: "My Father...let this cup pass from Me" where Jesus (or  
Matthew in translation) uses the third-person imperative. Putting  
aside questions about what language Jesus was speaking etc., the  
grammar is a command to the cup, but it seems more likely that the  
real intent of the command is a request to the Father, where the LXX  
mode might be optative ("may this cup pass"). So what we seem to have  
here is a situation where the command does and does not express  
permission. It seemingly does in the sense of the speaker's intent,  
but grammatically it does not, with "let" serving only as a poor  
English substitute for the third-person imperative. That is, the  
average reader might be right in thinking that Jesus was asking the  
Father to permit the cup to pass, but he would be right for the wrong  
reason.

That brings me back to 1 Cor. 7:15. Grammatically, "let him leave" is  
a command to the unbeliever, with no ambiguity. But is it possible  
that Paul's intent is to order the congregation not to stand in the  
unbeliever's way, and the third-person command is a polite way to  
express this, i.e. a third-person being substituted for a second- 
person command?

Now I anticipate that someone will be tempted to quote Dan Wallace to  
me (GGBTB on or near p. 485), something like "The imperative  
shouldn't be called the command mode because it does other things as  
well." But IMO Dan is either trying to simplify the situation for  
most Greek students, or he might be making the mistake of allowing  
interpretation to assume too great a role in defining grammar. In the  
case of 1 Cor. 7:15 it is a question of intent and style vis-a-vis  
grammar, not of the meaning of the imperative. So what I am  
requesting here is it that we go beyond his BTB, as fine a work as  
that truly is.

Don Wilkins



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