Luke 1:58 parsing

[bschuth]

I'm confused about how to parse this verse correctly. It's the second half that I'm stumbling on:

?μεγάλυνεν κύ?ιος τὸ ἔλεος αὑτοῦ μετ' αύτῆς

First shot at literal translation was "The Lord magnified/extolled his mercy with her." But wouldn't that require το ελεος to be το ελεον?

Perhaps κυ?ιος isn't substantive here, and is instead functioning an an adjective modifying το ελεος? No, same problem -- then it should be κυ?ιον.

This business of a neuter noun that looks just like a masculine noun may be what's messing me up here. Does ελεος decline ελεος or ελεον in the accusative in Koine?

Thanks for any help; this is my first time with NT Greek...

bjs

[modus.irrealis]

You have the right idea -- ἔλεος is both nominative and accusative. There are a bunch of neuter nouns whose nominative singular ends in -ος but they belong to their own declension and like all neuter nouns have the same form in the nom. and acc. case (I wonder if that's the only rule in Greek that has no exceptions?).

But this word did use to be masculine and be declined like a normal masculine noun but it looks like it completely switched over to the neuter declension in the Koine.

So I think your translation is good.