[B-Greek] Using future as imperative?
Hefin Jones
hefinjohn at yahoo.co.uk
Thu Nov 10 22:49:13 EST 2005
--- Waldemar Martens <waldemar_martens at web.de> wrote:
> I have a question about the following passage:
> KURION TON QEON SOU PROSKUNHSEIS KAI AUTW MONW
> LATREUSEIS (Luke 4,8b)
>
> The grammatical form of the two verbs ist future. So
> why this is commonly translated as:
> "You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only
> shall you serve. " (AKJV) ?
> I would translate this as.
> "You WILL worship the Lord your God and will serve
> him only"
Well the discussion which has been generated by this
question has been useful but I would like to suggest a
rather different answer to Waldemar's original
question.
Whenever I see "shall" in a text I have the
heebie-jeebies trying to remember the rule for its
usage, noting that the rule is not the same in
written/formal british-english, american english, or
british-english 'as she is spoke'.
Here's one modern american dictionary's summary of the
usage of 'shall':
Usage Note: The traditional rules for using shall and
will prescribe a highly complicated pattern of use in
which the meanings of the forms change according to
the person of the subject. In the first person, shall
is used to indicate simple futurity: I shall (not
will) have to buy another ticket. In the second and
third persons, the same sense of futurity is expressed
by will: The comet will (not shall) return in 87
years. You will (not shall) probably encounter some
heavy seas when you round the point. The use of will
in the first person and of shall in the second and
third may express determination, promise, obligation,
or permission, depending on the context. Thus I will
leave tomorrow indicates that the speaker is
determined to leave; You and she shall leave tomorrow
is likely to be interpreted as a command. The sentence
You shall have your money expresses a promise (I will
see that you get your money), whereas You will have
your money makes a simple prediction. ·Such, at least,
are the traditional rules. The English and some
traditionalists about usage are probably the only
people who follow these rules, and then not with
perfect consistency. In America, people who try to
adhere to them run the risk of sounding pretentious or
haughty. Americans normally use will to express most
of the senses reserved for shall in English usage.
Americans use shall chiefly in first person
invitations and questions that request an opinion or
agreement, such as Shall we go? and in certain fixed
expressions, such as We shall overcome. In formal
style, Americans use shall to express an explicit
obligation, as in Applicants shall provide a proof of
residence, though this sense is also expressed by must
or should. In speech the distinction that the English
signal by the choice of shall or will may be rendered
by stressing the auxiliary, as in I will leave
tomorrow (I intend to leave); by choosing another
auxiliary, such as must or have to; or by using an
adverb such as certainly. ·In addition to its sense of
obligation, shall also can convey high moral
seriousness that derives in part from its extensive
use in the King James Bible, as in Righteousness
shall go before him and shall set us in the way of his
steps (Ps 85:13) and He that shall humble himself
shall be exalted (Mt 23:12). The prophetic overtones
that shall bears with it have no doubt led to its use
in some of the loftiest rhetoric in English. This may
be why Lincoln chose to use it instead of will in the
Gettysburg Address:government of the people, by the
people, for the people shall not perish from the
earth.
Now if you followed that the next question is...
Did the translators of the KJV (I'm guessing Waldemar
means Authorised KJV by his AKJV) follow what the
usage note calls the "traditional rule"?
Being a bit of linguistic sceptic about most such
prescriptive 'rules' knowing that most were codified
for english in the 18th and 19th century I went and
did some rough and ready searches on the usage of
'shall' and 'will' in the KJV and it is clear that
they don't follow the rule with any consistency
translating at times both subjunctives and futures,
both promises and predictions (hard to distinguish if
the speaker is God!) etc... with "you shall" or "you
will" with no immediately clear rationale for one over
the other (though there could be a rationale - but it
isn't the traditional rule or the alternative modern
usages).
Waldemar's confusion with AKJV's "shall" and "will" is
probably "b-english" rather than "b-greek".
Hefin Jones
Sydney
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