context: Peter, having seen a vision commanding this, has begun to teach and eat with gentiles in the city of Joppa. Now he is back in Jerusalem defending this step to the believers there, for whom it is an unexpected development.
Translation: And I heard a voice saying to me, “Up, Peter, kill and eat.”
I’m thinking that the aorist imperative θῦσον [kill] indicates an action to be completed right away, while the present imperative φάγε [eat] suggests a longer process, something like “kill now and be eating.” The killing can be done swiftly and completely, but eating stretches out over time.
Is there a suggestion in the present imperative of “keep eating from now on.”? This is just a grammar question. From context, it’s clear [to me] that the author of Acts intends this vision to have authorized such food “from now on”, so to speak.
Finally a question of protocol: is this question OK here, or in future should I ask questions about the NT text in the koine group? I’m reading the NT because I’m familiar with the English version, the sentences are short and easy, and there is plenty of grammatical help online.
Yes, I hate to do this to your excellent question, but φάγε is aorist, from ἔφαγον, suppletive to ἐσθίω. Otherwise, the present imperative can in certain contexts suggest ongoing action, whereas the aorist imperative is the action viewed as a whole. But that’s not quite the entire story…
As for δὲ καί, I really don’t know if other writers do it, but there’s nothing that strikes me as unique about it. δέ coordinates with the previous clauses, and καί is adverbial, “also.” English can get away with omitting it (it’s really not necessary), but Luke found it fit what he wanted to say well.
Yes, ask, and If you’re lucky you might even get an answer, in all likelihood from Barry. φάγε looks as if it’s the imperative of a present φάγω, but in fact it’s aorist and there’s no aspectual difference between θῦσον and φάγε.
As for δε και, they’re often found together (not just in the NT), but they function independently. δε is the ordinary sentence connective, while και looks back more specifically to the preceding statement. “I saw X … and I heard Y too …”
God comes in the night, tells Balaam to “ἀναστὰς ἀκολούθησον αὐτοῖς” and then in the morning Balaam loads his donkey and follows them.
It strikes me that our ubiquitous English fudge of treating these attendant participles as if they were wholly equivalent to the main imperatives in the sentence, leaves something to be desired.
ἀναστὰς is a participle and always functions as such. Barry, you might want to reconsider your statement that “imperatival use of the participle [is] quite common throughout Greek literature.” Can you find a single example, either in the NT or in Greek lit in general? (Not 1 Peter please.)
But it was sneaky of Joel to lead you into the trap. Nor did he need to adduce the Septuagint to make the point! I’d been hoping there was more behind his question and his irrelevant Homer quote than this, but apparently there wasn’t.
To translate ἀναστάντες προσεύχεσθε as “Get up and pray” is not “fudge," Joel, but good translation (even if it fails to capture the aspect), and miles better than “having gotten up, pray.” This is something even beginners learn. That Mark’’s γρηγορεῖτε καὶ προσεύχεσθε effectively corresponds with it, well, that’s elementary, though we might register Luke’s slightly more sophisticated syntax. Surely we can have a more sensible discussion than this.
I thought this usage was well enough established as imperatival use of a participle in conjunction with an imperative. Such use is commented on by Robertson and Wallace though not more widely as I found checking a few grammars. It’s not hard to find similar examples in the NT. Wallace though notes it’s a somewhat abused category but enough on that.
I am wondering though if the participle is never imperatival how you arrive at the preferred translation you do - not that I like to argue Greek from English - but if that capture the thought better I am wondering why. I am not trying to have a go as they say, but I am interested in how you understand the participle here if not imperatival and yet end up with an imperatival form of translation. Perhaps to clarify the point, how would you expect the “when you have gotten up, pray” to be worded ?
You just said exactly what I would have said, so I think it’s a difference of terminology. By imperatival participle, I mean an adverbial participle taken with an imperative main verb, where in English we would certainly use two imperatives. The most “famous” NT example would be Matt 28:19,
πορευθέντες οὖν μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη…
“Therefore go and teach all the nations…”
As for aspect, that is usually something in the English derived from context. We don’t say “Having gone, teach all nations.” From ordinary English usage, it’s clear that the going is part of and antecedent to the main verb. It’s not something we have to think about, it’s just the way we do it English.
Searching Mastronarde, I see that I had studied the matter, but afterwards I forgot it. (I can tell by the underlining and the marginal notes.) This seems to be the way my self-instruction works: 1. study grammar precepts. 2. forget most of them. 3. rediscover the precepts when puzzled by a reading. In classroom learning, the instruction is more lively. There are the other students’ errors, the teachers’ probing questions, the teachers’ corny restatements of precepts, and so on.
However, English also influences how we think. The thing that the Greek gets across in Matt 28:19 that the English doesn’t, is that μαθητεύσατε is the important thing, and πορευθέντες colors it. English “go and teach all the nations…” makes it sound like he’s sending out missionaries to the world, when it is perhaps not too different a sentiment than Psalm 96:3. And why does πορευθέντες get higher billing than βαπτίζοντες and διδάσκοντες? Surely they are just as imperatival (or whatever term we should use here).
“So disciple all the peoples, going and baptizing them…and teaching them…”
Another option would be to simply kill the “and” like the old black spiritual:
πορευθέντες ἀναγγείλατε ἐπὶ τοῦ ὄρους
Go tell it on the mountain!
In Attic, in Kratylus at least, I notice that Plato seems to use θαρρῶν much more like “bravely” or “boldly” than “buck up and…”. θαρρῶν τοίνυν, ὦ γενναῖε, ἔα καὶ ὄνομα τὸ μὲν εὖ κεῖσθαι, τὸ δὲ μή, καὶ μὴ ἀνάγκαζε πάντ᾽ ἔχειν τὰ γράμματα… It is stronger if he is using it to modify the main imperatives, not add another.
And I’m sorry that mwh didn’t see the point of the Numbers quotation. I thought it was a very clear example of ἀναστάς being taken almost as incidental to the main imperative, compared to my Luke example where it comes across as entirely equivalent to an imperative verb, as if it were a true imperative drawn into the participle form by the idiom.
Well translators, and not just of the NT, regularly render the participle + imperative as two imperatives. Have translators of Homer or Plato, et al., been influenced by the English?
The participles following the imperative are a different matter. Some NT grammarians, at least, think participles following an imperative should be rendered instrumentally rather than as imperatives. Not sure I agree – I think the sentence could be structured in English with all imperatives and it would still render the sense of the Greek adequately, but translators since the KJV have done otherwise, so who am I to argue?
As for Num 22:20, the participle + imperative actually render two Hebrew imperatives, קוּם לֵךְ, so the LXX translator felt that the participle + imperative adequately captured the force of the two qal imperatives. Jerome renders with two imperatives, surge et vade, as do practically all English translations, but the LXX translator would rather use a good Greek construction (at least here!).
I repeat, a participle is never used as an imperative. Of course it may be used with an imperative, just as it may be used with any other form of a verb (indicative, infinitive, subjunctive, whatever), but it will always be subordinate to whatever form of verb it attends. When it precedes an imperative (as e.g. ἀναστὰς ἀκολούθησον αὐτοῖς, or ἀναστάντες προσεύχεσθε, or πορευθέντες οὖν μαθητεύσατε πάντα τὰ ἔθνη), the participle itself is not imperatival, it’s simply a participle, and to call it imperatival is to think in terms of English, not Greek.
Good points all. That we so render it in the appropriate context doesn’t make it an imperative. But I still think “imperatival” or “imperatival usage” is a good description.
