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Revelation 20:14
Posted: September 20th, 2011, 7:17 pm
by Ron Demler
και ο θανατος και ο αδης εβληθησαν εις την λιμνην του πυρος ουτος ο θανατος ο δευτερος εστιν η λιμνη του πυρος
Most of the fairly literal translations render the verse as:
Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.
My question is about the second sentence. In the Greek, the "is" (εστιν) is placed between "second death" and "lake of fire", and reads literally: "This, the second death, is the lake of fire." And yet, every single English translation that I've seen says "This is the second death, the lake of fire."
Why is the "is" shifted when translating the Greek into English?
Re: Revelation 20:14
Posted: September 21st, 2011, 8:44 am
by David Lim
Ron Demler wrote:και ο θανατος και ο αδης εβληθησαν εις την λιμνην του πυρος ουτος ο θανατος ο δευτερος εστιν η λιμνη του πυρος
Most of the fairly literal translations render the verse as:
Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.
My question is about the second sentence. In the Greek, the "is" (εστιν) is placed between "second death" and "lake of fire", and reads literally: "This, the second death, is the lake of fire." And yet, every single English translation that I've seen says "This is the second death, the lake of fire."
Why is the "is" shifted when translating the Greek into English?
The word order in Greek is very flexible, and usually reflect emphasis and rarely difference in meaning. I don't remember seeing "ουτος +
noun clause" ever being appositional, is there? From what I know "ουτος" is a determiner and "
determiner +
noun clause" is the typical construction in which the determiner functions like an adjective (apart from being without an article) and modifies the noun clause. So if that were the case "ουτος ο θανατος ο δευτερος" would mean "this second death", which does not make sense because no "second death" was previously mentioned. Rather, "ουτος ο θανατος ο δευτερος εστιν" has "ουτος" as the subject and "ο θανατος ο δευτερος" as the predicate, which is usually in front of the copulative verb anyway.
Re: Revelation 20:14
Posted: September 22nd, 2011, 11:39 am
by Ron Demler
David Lim wrote:
The word order in Greek is very flexible, and usually reflect emphasis and rarely difference in meaning. I don't remember seeing "ουτος + noun clause" ever being appositional, is there? From what I know "ουτος" is a determiner and "determiner + noun clause" is the typical construction in which the determiner functions like an adjective (apart from being without an article) and modifies the noun clause. So if that were the case "ουτος ο θανατος ο δευτερος" would mean "this second death", which does not make sense because no "second death" was previously mentioned. Rather, "ουτος ο θανατος ο δευτερος εστιν" has "ουτος" as the subject and "ο θανατος ο δευτερος" as the predicate, which is usually in front of the copulative verb anyway.
Thanks David. My Greek knowledge is extremely rudimentary, so I'll need to study more to be able to translate what you just said
Does this explanation look right to anyone else?
Re: Revelation 20:14
Posted: September 23rd, 2011, 7:54 pm
by Mark Lightman
Rob wanted to know:
Does this explanation look right to anyone else?
Hi, Rob,
Yes, David's explanation is as right as rain.
Re: Revelation 20:14
Posted: September 25th, 2011, 3:50 pm
by Ron Demler
Mark Lightman wrote:
Hi, Rob,
Yes, David's explanation is as right as rain.
Great. Thanks for the input!
p.s. it's Ron