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Chapter 43 · Lesson 43.3 · Conjunction
Conjunction – ὡς, οὕτως, ἄχρι(ς)
ObjectivesLearning objectives
VocabularyVocabulary
| Greek | Gloss | Part of speech | Paradigm |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἡ εὐσέβεια, -ας | the godliness | noun | B.a.α.ii |
| ὁ κληρονόμος, -ου | the heir | noun | B.a.β.i |
| ὁ ῥαββί | the rabbi | noun | indecl |
| οὐδέποτε | never | adverb | |
| ἐπιμένω τινί | (I) continue in something (dat) | verb | C.a.ια |
| ἐπιθυμεῖ τινος | (he) strongly desires something/one (gen) | verb | C.a.β |
Table 373 (continued)
GrammarGrammar Topic: Conjunction – ὡς, οὕτως, ἄχρι
new word for ‘until’, namely ἄχρι. In the NT, ἄχρι is almost always found without a final ς but in earlier stages of Greek, as well as in a handful of passages, the form is ἄχρις.
Noteὡς
Syntactically, ὡς can be used in what are called elliptical constructions:
ἡ θυγάτηρ ἀναγινώσκει ὡς
The daughter reads like her mother
In this example, we understand that how the daughter reads is being compared to how the mother reads, even though it does not say explicitly that the mother’s reading is being compared to the daughter’s reading. In other words, it does not say ἡ θυγάτηρ ἀναγινώσκει ὡς ἡ μήτηρ αὐτῆς ἀναγινώσκει. In our original sentence, this last ἀναγινώσκει is understood, but it isn’t said. This is called ellipsis where one part of the sentence is deleted phonologically/graphically, but it is still understood semantically. Elliptical constructions like this are common with ὡς.
Three other uses of ὡς are worth mentioning. First, it may be used temporally to indicate when something happened in comparison to something else:
ὡς δὲ ἐπαύσατο λαλῶν, εἶπεν πρὸς τὸν Σίμωνα (Luke 5:4)
But when he stopped speaking, he said to Simon
The clause introduced with ὡς refers to an event of stopping speaking, and this occurs immediately before Jesus says something to Simon. In this example, both verbs are in the indicative mood, but the subjunctive is also possible:
ὡς ἄνθρωπος βάλῃ τὸν σπόρον (Mark 4:26)
Thus, the kingdom of God is like a man who would throw seed
This second use of ὡς relates an eventuality to a hypothetical eventuality. The state of what the kingdom of God is like is a real eventuality, and this is compared to the hypothetical eventuality of a man throwing seed.
Finally, ὡς may be used to approximate something, either a number or another noun:
ἔμεινεν δὲ Μαριὰμ σὺν αὐτῇ ὡς μῆνας τρεῖς (Luke 1:56)
But Mary stayed with her about three months
ἤκουσα ὡς φωνήν (Rev 19:1)
I heard something like a voice
Noteοὕτως
καὶ ἐάν τις ὑμᾶς ἐρωτᾷ· διὰ τί λύετε; οὕτως ἐρεῖτε· ὅτι ὁ κύριος αὐτοῦ χρείαν ἔχει (Luke 19:31)
And if anyone asks you, “Why are you loosing it?” You should say this: “Because his master needs him”
ὃς ἐὰν οὖν λύσῃ μίαν τῶν ἐντολῶν τούτων τῶν ἐλαχίστων καὶ διδάξῃ οὕτως τοὺς ἀνθρώπους (Matt 5:19) Whoever, then, relaxes one of the smallest of these commandments and likewise teaches people introduce the manner in which something is done. This includes καθάπερ, καθώς, ὡς, and ὥσπερ:
καὶ καθὼς ἐγένετο ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις Νῶε, οὕτως ἔσται καὶ ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις τοῦ υἱοῦ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (Luke 17:26) And as it was in the days of Noah, so also it will be in the days of the son of man
Besides this use, it may also be used to describe the manner in which something should be done in comparison to how an action was performed in the world (without the other eventuality being mentioned in the discourse):
οὕτως ἀποκρίνῃ τῷ ἀρχιερεῖ; (John 18:22)
That’s the way you answer the high priest?
Noteἄχρι
The range of meaning of ἄχρι is very similar to ἕως (42.3.3.1). Just like ἕως, ἄχρι gets a special interpretation when used with negation. It means that something will not happen until a certain time, but it will happen after (found with the following verb in the subjunctive):
ἄχρι ἧς ἡμέρας γένηται ταῦτα (Luke 1:20)
Until the day in which these things happen
We infer from this that Zechariah will be able to speak after these things occur, but he will not be able to beforehand. There are other times where ἄχρι does not mark a temporal boundary, but the temporal duration of an event:
ἤλθομεν πρὸς αὐτοὺς εἰς τὴν Τρῳάδα ἄχρι ἡμερῶν πέντε (Acts 20:6)
We came to them at Troas in five days
We also have examples of ἄχρι used of eventualities that continue to a certain point (and potentially beyond) and in spatial sentences to refer to movement up to a point:
His tomb is among us until today
ἦλθεν ἄχρι ἐμοῦ (Acts 11:5)
It came up to me
David’s tomb was with them from the time David died, and it continued to be with them up until the time of Peter’s statement and beyond. In Acts 11:5, Peter reports on the vision he saw, a sheet is being described that was let down from heaven and came up to him and stopped; this refers to spatial movement up to a point.
Syntactically, ἄχρι may occur with or without the relative pronoun οὗ, and it may have a genitive noun follow it or a verb. When followed by a noun, the bare form ἄχρι is more common, and when followed by a verb, the form ἄχρι οὗ is more common.
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New Testament text shown on hover: Greek from the SBLGNT, © 2010 Society of Biblical Literature and Logos Bible Software, CC BY 4.0; English from the Berean Standard Bible (public domain).