BBG workbook chapter 9 line 14 (second edition)

[Bert]

This line reads as follows; "[face=SPIonic]e)n toi=j lo/goij Daui\d toi=j e)sxa/toij e)sti\n o( a)riqmo\j ui(w=n Leui\ A)po\ ei)kosaetou=j kai\ e)pa/nw[/face]
This sentence means something like; "by the last words of David, this is the number of the the sons of Levi, from twenty years old and over."
My question is; I have to supply the pronoun 'this' in order to make sense of this line. Without having the context of this sentence, can I know for sure that I supplied the right word? I tried translating at first having 'the number' as the subject (the number is ... ) but I could not find a word in the nominative to fill in the blank.
I feel a little uncomfortable just adding a word. If the context indicated the possibility, would it be grammatically possible to add the word 'high' (...the number of the sons of Levi is high...)?

[mingshey]

Searching in the Blue Letter Bible(http://www.blueletterbible.org) the quote is from 1Ch 23:27.

I hope it helps. Anyway it's a translation of a hebrew sentence...

[Skylax]

Literal translation is "The number of sons... is in the last words (or "discourses", or something)...". We can translate the [face=SPIonic]e)sti/[/face] as "there is".

[Bert]

We can translate the [face=SPIonic]e)sti/[/face] as "there is".

Is this a common thing that the pronoun (there, this, that, etc) is implied with this verb?

[Paul]

Hi Bert,

In Greek every verb is a complete sentence. Its stem is the predicate, its ending the subject.

After Monro, in the sentence [face=SPIonic]e)s-ti[/face], the predicate [face=SPIonic]e)s[/face] means 'is', the subject [face=SPIonic]ti[/face] means 'it' (or 'he', 'she'). Similarly, in the sentence [face=SPIonic]h)/lqo-men[/face], the predicate [face=SPIonic]h)/lqo[/face] means 'came', the subject [face=SPIonic]men[/face] means 'we'.

He then notes that "..the Endings of a Verb may always be translated by Personal Pronouns..". Obviously, 'there' is not a personal pronoun, but it's not much of a stretch from 'it is' to 'there is'.

Cordially,

Paul

[mingshey]

Bert, I remember the verb [face=SPIonic]ei)mi/[/face] also means "exist".
Jesus said [face=SPIonic]pri\n a)braa\m gene/sqai e)gw~ ei)mi/[/face](Jn 8:58 ).

[klewlis]

Yes, it is quite common, and you don't need to feel bad about putting in the "extra" word. :)