Greek nouns

4.3. Greek nouns
Let’s study Greek nouns. Greek nouns behave differently from English nouns. Greek is a highly inflected language. A change to the ending of a word gives it a different meaning. Greek will do that with the article, nouns, adjectives, and pronouns. The following table will give you an indication of the appearance of nouns, pronouns, article, and adjectives in the New Testament.
Nouns, Pronouns, Article, and Adjectives in the New Testament (excluding vocatives)|
Case|Nouns|Pronouns|Articles|Adjectives|
Nominative|7794|3145| 6009|3049|
Genitive|7681 |4986 |5028 |1195 |
Dative|4375|3565 |2944 | 936|
Accusative|8815 |5009 |5889 |2435 |
How does Greek inflect its nouns? For example, the noun theos, means ‘God’. If I want to say ‘to God’, I will say: theōi. If I say the-e, it means ‘God!’ Theou means ‘of God’. Where Greek changes the ending, English adds a preposition to convey the correct meaning. The good thing about the different endings in Greek is that you can immediately recognise the function of each noun in a sentence. Each ending indicates a particular function. The ending ‘os’ in theos indicates that it is the subject of the sentence. It is called the nominative case. Greek has five different cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative and vocative. Besides the case, a noun or an adjective in Greek has a number (singular or plural) and gender (masculine, feminine, or neuter). When you deal with a Greek noun, adjective, or pronoun you should ask the following questions:
1. What is the part of speech? (noun, adjective, pronoun. We will deal with other parts of speech later).
2. What is the case? (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative or vocative).
3. What is the number? (singular or plural).
4. What is the gender? (masculine, feminine or neuter).
ES and TW will answer these questions for you through their dictionary called RMAC (Robinson’s Morphological Analytical Code).
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Look at the word presbuteros (πρεσβυτερος) in 2 John 1:1. The grammatical code after the word is A-NSM. Robinson’s Morphological Analysis Code (RMAC) indicates that the code stand for: Adjective, Nominative, Singular and Masculine.
Table for declension of Nouns|
Word|Part of speech|Case|Number|Gender|Meaning|
πρεσβυτερος|Adjective|Nominative|Singular|Masculine|Elder|
Tools like TW and ES will do all the parsing for you. The only thing that you need to do is to interpret the codes. Here is a basic explanation of the cases in Greek, based on Strong’s Greek in a Nutshell (available in ES and TW), which I have updated.
Name|Use|Equivalent|
Nominative|Often the subject of the sentence|(Simple form).|
Genitive|Origin or ownership, producer (subjective) or recipient (objective) of an action|From, of, etc.|
Dative|Position or manner|In, by, for, to, etc.|
Accusative|Direction or object|Toward, into, etc.|
Vocative|Address|O!|
This table is a very simple one to show the differences between the cases. When you deal with the Greek text, the interpretation will not be that simple. Let me give you an example from Revelation 1:1.
αποκαλυψις G602 N-NSFιησου G2424 N-GSMχριστου G5547 N-GSM
This phrase is simply translated as ‘Revelation of Jesus Christ’. Iēsou Christou (N-GSM) is interpreted by RMAC as (Noun, Genitive, Singular, and Masculine). How should we interpret the genitive here? Is Jesus Christ the producer or the recipient of the revelation? In order to answer this question, we must now turn to Robertson and Vincent. It is not possible to interpret the cases without the help of these giants at this stage of your journey with Greek. This course does not teach the student to become an independent scholar in biblical languages. It is important to learn from the scholars first. Here are their comments:
Vincent: Of Jesus Christ. Not the manifestation or disclosure of Jesus Christ, but the revelation given by Him.
Robertson: Of Jesus Christ (Iēsou Christou). Hort takes it as objective genitive (revelation about Jesus Christ), but Swete rightly argues for the subjective genitive because of the next clause.
According to these two scholars, then, Revelation 1:1 says that the revelation is given by Jesus. The phrase should not be interpreted to mean ‘about Jesus Christ’. If you study their comments further, you will understand why they made that case. Both writers gave a detailed word study of the word ‘revelation’.
A more in-depth study of the cases is necessary to interpret them properly. This course assumes that you do not have that knowledge, and that you are prepared to learn from the giants!
In 2 John 1:9, John spoke about the ‘doctrine G1322 of ChristG5547’. What was he referring to? Was it the doctrine ‘about’ Jesus Christ? Or was John referring to the doctrine ‘taught by’ Christ?
Here are a few more examples from the New Testament to illustrate the use of nouns.
4.3.1. Vocative
Even though the vocative does not appear often in the New Testament, we will start with it. In these examples, you should look for the morphological code N-VSM.
Part of Speech: Noun
Case: Vocative
Number: Singular
Gender: Masculine
· Matthew 6:9 πατερN-VSM ημωνP-1GP “Our Father”
· Matthew 17:15 κυριεN-VSM ελεησονV-AAM-2S “Lord have mercy”
· Revelation 22:20 ερχουV-PNM-2S κυριεN-VSM ιησουN-VSM “Come, Lord Jesus.
In Matthew 15:28 Christ exclaimed ωINJ γυναιN-VSF ‘O, woman!’ The particle ω (ō) is used here to express emotion. We find it with a similar function a few times in the ministry of the Lord Jesus (see Matt. 17:17; Mark 9:19; Luke 24:25).
4.3.2. Genitive
The genitive is used in a number of ways. One of them is to express possession, as illustrated in the following examples.
· Matthew 26:51 τονT-ASM δουλονN-ASM τουT-GSM αρχιερεωςN-GSM“The servant of the high priest”
· Matthew 26:51 αυτουP-GSM τοT-ASN ωτιονN-ASN “of him the ear.”
The grammatical code (N-GSM) can be explained as follows:
Part of Speech: Noun
Case: Genitive
Number: Singular
Gender: Masculine
The text is very specific. The disciple struck the servant who belonged to the high priest and not the servant of another person. In addition, he cut off the ear belonging to that particular servant. The genitive is also used to refer to an object. It is then called technically objective genitive. A good example of this is found in Mark 11:22.
· εχετεV-PAM-2P πιστινN-ASF θεουN-GSM ‘Have faith in God’. The genitive here cannot be translated as possessive, meaning ‘have faith of God’. It is not about having the kind of faith that comes from God. God here is the object of the faith. The Lord Jesus wanted his disciples to have God as the object of their faith. Robertson indicates in his commentary that the genitive here is objective, which makes it easy to explain.
Decline the following words in 2 John 1:7.|
Word|Part of speech|Case|Number|Gender|Meaning|
Σαρκι||||||
Χριστον||||||
Αντιχριστος||||||