[B-Greek] SIGATW in 1 Cor 14:30

Elizabeth Kline kline-dekooning at earthlink.net
Mon Sep 26 11:27:55 EDT 2005


On Sep 26, 2005, at 3:41 AM, Kimmo Huovila wrote:

> EAN DE ALLWi APOKALUFQHi KAQHMENWi, hO PRWTOS SIGATW.
>
> Some commentators think that the situation is that in the middle of  
> someone
> speaking, someone sitting gets a revelation, and then the first  
> person is
> supposed to stop speaking.
>
> If this is the case, would SIGHSATW be more natural? The reasoning  
> is that the
> SIGAW is stative and the present means to be quiet and the aorist  
> often has
> the sense of becoming quiet (change of state).
>
> Could the thought be that the first speaker is to remain silent after
> finishing his speech and another getting a revelation and starting  
> to share
> it? In other words, could this be a prohibition against  
> interrupting the
> second speaker by the first one? Which would be more likely?

Yes we should read SIGATW as a stative and yes it probably means to  
remain silent. However I don't see any reason for the either/or  
approach which you are suggesting. An injunction to remain silent is  
also an injunction to stop speaking. In other words the choice of the  
stative puts more weight on keeping silent but by inference one must  
stop talking to enter into the silent state.

The very predictable tendency to become longwinded after once being  
granted the right to speak in the assembly is probably in view here.  
I think Paul is saying that the first speaker should "wrap it up" and  
sit down and then resist the temptation to interrupt. SIGATW as a  
stative was the best choice for conveying this.

English parallels are always open to criticism but consider the  
situation where an old fashion (strict) family has guests at the  
dinner table and the mother says to the talkative child "quiet". The  
inference is to stop talking and remain in a state of silence.


Elizabeth Kline







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