Biblical Greek - Lesson 33

Dr. Bill Mounce
Biblical Greek
nt201-33
Imperative
Lesson Transcript

[00:00:00] Well, welcome to chapter 33. Three more to go. Well, today we're going to learn the imperative. Just three basic things apart from form about the imperative. First of all, the imperative is the mood of command. Now, which if you want to tell someone to do something, the verb goes into the imperative, Right? Second of all, in English, all imperatives are second person, right? If I say answer me, the implied subject is you either use singular or you plural. In Greek, we have second and third person imperatives. And what you're going to see is that we'll use a phrase something like let. So if you had a third person imperative, you say, let him answer. Second person will be answer. Third person is let him or let them answer. And finally, we're only going to learn the forms for two imperatives the present imperative and the arrest imperative. There are only four perfect imperatives in the New Testament. They're listed in the textbook. We won't learn them, but we're going to learn imperatives that are formed on the present tense stem. And what do you think they're going to indicate? Continuous action. Right. And what do you think the imperative built on the UN augmented Eris tense STEM is going to indicate undefined action. C So simple, isn't it so easy? No time at all. Only aspect. Okay, well, here's the imperative morpheme chart. I have tried. I don't know how many different ways to find a way to summarize what the imperative looks like in the second person singular. I just haven't been able to do it. I can't find an easy way to do it. And when I first learned the imperatives, I started with the second person singular. And because they were different from tends to tense, I mistakenly thought that the imperative was irregular.

[00:02:05] But as you can see, the rest of the imperative is blissfully regular. So here's what I do with the imperative of morpheme chart. The second person singular has a question mark that just means it differs from tense to tense. And I memorized it as something to to Towson. And then in the middle passive, the tau was replaced with the sigma theta. And I get something. So there those. Okay. So when you see it that way, it's absolutely regular and easy to learn. It's just a second person. Singular forms are going to have to be memorized. Notice also that the left hand column is what the imperative looks like in the active and the arrest passive. Now, we've seen that over and over again, haven't we? That there is passive use as active forms. Okay. What about the second person singular imperative? Let's look at some of them here. If you saw this dealer and if I told you this is an imperative, you know, it's got to be a second person singular, Second person, singular president act of imperative is an epsilon. So pissed USA would be translated. Believe, or if you wanted to say you believe, you could. If is fit the context. Now, how are you going to indicate the difference between a present imperative and an interest imperative? You can't. I mean, it's really hard. You could say something like continue to believe versus the simple believe. But again, that's horrid English. And so most people just say, translate the present and the first imperatives the same way. That's why they're preachers, because it's really interesting to watch in the New Testament when the imperatives are present and when they're eeriest, when they're continuous, when they're undefined. Very hard to bring out the difference in the translation, though.

[00:04:08] Okay. If you saw at all, how would you translate that? Something told to Towson. You're going to have to have a subject of some sort from the context, aren't you? Let's say it's a her, but Mary is the subject of the imperative. And you would translate it. Let her believe. Okay. Do you see that? The translation on this is pretty straightforward. Here's a harder one ere who? It's second person singular imperative. How are you going to translate that? Go. Or come whatever side of the camera you want. The point of the illustration is that if a verb is deponent in the present, in the indicative, it's also deponent in the imperative. Have you seen that by now that a verb being deponent has nothing to do with its mood? It only has to do with its tense. So if a verb is deponent in the present indicative, it will be deponent in all of its present forms, regardless of mood. So ere who is come? Lavazza. You can see one of the interesting problems. The endings are something told to Towson. So this is a. It looks like a second person, plural, indicative from wobble. Right. But guess what? No such thing. So you look at that and you may think it's an indicative second plural. You look at the stem and you say, is that is that the present tense stem? Is that the stem of Memrise? The answer is no. It's an undocumented heiress. Oh. All right. Second person. Plural. Arrest. Active. Imperative. And you translate it. He got to thinking English. This is not this is not a Greek thing. This is an English thing at this point. How do you tell a group of people to learn bond or something? Receive.

[00:06:20] I wanted you to see the process I went through. All right. You may think this is a second person plural, indicative, but when you look at the stem, you go, Oh, that's not a present tense stem. Oh, it's an undocumented artist. I don't have to in a second person, plural, Eris. It's got to be something else. Oh, that's right. Something told to Tolson. Second person, plural arrest activ imperative from Lombardo. So if you saw Bleeth Tolson, something told to Tolson. It's a third plural. You look at the Bleeth, and you know you are in an arrest passive form. So you know that this is an arrest. Passive imperative. Third person, plural. Okay. How do I say that? The third person will be Let them. Okay, the verb is ball or throw, but I have to make it passive. Let them be thrown out of class. Not just teasing. You see that again? What you're doing. Same thing we've been doing with other verbal forms is that you've got to say, okay, what is this grammatically? And then you say, Oh, how do I say that in English? Let them be thrown. Let me just run through the paradigm very quickly. You'll need to spend time with them in your textbook. You're just going to have to memorize the second person singular in pair of title forms and in the master imperative chart. You're going to see that the second person singular forms are listed along with the third singular. And I don't know of any cute way to help you remember those things. You're just going to have to memorize them. So if you're in the active, the columns are the left column is the present imperative, and the middle column is the arrest imperative and the far right, the translation.

[00:08:19] So in the present act, if you have Lu Lu et or lu et lu et also in C, the second person singular is the only problem. If you go into the area active, if it's a first darris, it's going to be Luzon or whatever stem you have. And if it's a second Everest, remember second Everest use the same forms that the presidents do. So these patterns exist all the way through the different modes. It's labor. So once again, you look at labor, you see the epsilon, you go, oh, second person, singular imperative from labor. Oh, there's no such word. Must be nearest c y. You have to know your stems have to know your stems. Lose subtle losa to lose UT-Austin second Everest la better la but la better. So there's your active imperatives. So only the second person singular. That's an issue when you get into the middles. Same thing present middles Lu lu esto lu est lu est dolson. If it's a first darris, it's Luci. What's that look like? So I consider that, doesn't it? Same form, same letters doing this in the the infinitive. It very, very hard to confuse in context though, because an infinitive normally is like following a verb. Or you can have an article with the preposition or something with it. That'll be the clue that it's an infinitive. It really is. They're very difficult to confuse in context. But you have loose side. Loose source. The loose source. The loose Masterson. If it's a second. There's a new Guinness, though. Guinness. The Guinness. Those. And if you have a passive well in the present middle and passive over the same form, so there's no difference there. Lulu Esto Lewis the Lewis notion. But in the air is passive.

[00:10:23] All earth passes are formed off of a different tense stem from the Earth's actives. Right. So you have that change. And if it's a first terrace, it's Luther. A T is your second singular ending. Lose, Saito. Lose. Say to lose. Say, Towson. If it's a second verse. Graffiti. Graffito. Graffiti. Graffiti. Also. I wanted to run through the paradigms because it's. They're a little different. But I want you to see What you have to know is a question mark told to Towson. And then question marks those. There's still some, but you're going to have to memorize the second person singular forms, translations. And these things are a piece of cake. Just make it a command. If it's third person, use let. Now, let me give you one other very interesting piece of news. There's no more moods. We're actually done. In a real sense, the last two chapters have to do with something called me Verbs, and there's a slightly different way of the way the verbs form themselves. But in terms of tenses and moods, we're done. This is it. In basically in the Greek.