# Μή τις in Hebrews 12:14-16

**URL:** <https://www.textkit.com/t/in-hebrews-12-14-16/31320>\
**Category:** Koine and Biblical and Medieval Greek\
**Created:** [November 10, 2026, 6:23pm UTC](https://www.textkit.com/t/in-hebrews-12-14-16/31320 "2026-11-10T18:23:40Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Mitch](https://www.textkit.com/user_avatar/www.textkit.com/mitch/32/222_2.png) [@Mitch](https://www.textkit.com/u/Mitch)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2026, 6:23pm UTC](https://www.textkit.com/t/in-hebrews-12-14-16/31320/1 "2026-11-10T18:23:41Z")

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Εἰρήνην διώκετε μετὰ πάντων καὶ τὸν ἁγιασμόν, οὗ χωρὶς οὐδεὶς ὄψεται τὸν κύριον, ἐπισκοποῦντες **μή τις** ὑστερῶν ἀπὸ τῆς χάριτος τοῦ θεοῦ, **μή τις** ῥίζα πικρίας ἄνω φύουσα ἐνοχλῇ καὶ δι’ αὐτῆς μιανθῶσιν πολλοί, **μή τις** πόρνος ἢ βέβηλος ὡς Ἠσαῦ, ὃς ἀντὶ βρώσεως μιᾶς ἀπέδετο τὰ πρωτοτόκια ἑαυτοῦ.

I’m having trouble with this. In the Cambridge Greek Lexicon it lists four possible uses for μή τις (or μή τις) under the heading οὔτις:

1. (as adj.) not any, no
2. (as pron.) no one, nobody, nothing
3. not any, none (with partitive genitive plural of persons or things)
4. (as conjunction μή τις) in case anyone

I’m tempted to go with option 4 for the first **μή τις** and translate as “…watching over in case anyone is falling behind (or is lacking) in the grace of God” but I can’t give a grammatical reason that justifies my choice. Which is the right option in CGL regarding the first **μή τις** here, and why? (I need to nail this down before tacking the other two instances of **μή τις** in this sentence.) Thanks!

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**Author:** ![Mitch](https://www.textkit.com/user_avatar/www.textkit.com/mitch/32/222_2.png) [@Mitch](https://www.textkit.com/u/Mitch)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2026, 6:40pm UTC](https://www.textkit.com/t/in-hebrews-12-14-16/31320/2 "2026-11-10T18:40:41Z")

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No, wait; that’s a fear clause, isn’t it? i.e. “watching lest anyone is lagging behind regarding the grace of God.”

Have I got that right?

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**Author:** ![mwh](https://www.textkit.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/m/6f9a4e/32.png) [@mwh](https://www.textkit.com/u/mwh)\
**Post date:** [November 10, 2026, 11:12pm UTC](https://www.textkit.com/t/in-hebrews-12-14-16/31320/3 "2026-11-10T23:12:04Z")

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Well I don’t know if all these are mutually exclusive, Mitch, and I’m not sure you’re going about this quite the right way. When I see ἐπισκοποῦντες μή τις I firmly expect a 3rd-person sing. subjunctive to follow. If ὑστερῶν were subjunctive, or led up to a subjunctive to which ἀπὸ τῆς χάριτος τοῦ θεοῦ applied, there’d be no difficulty; that would be in syntactical parallel with the next clause, μή τις ῥίζα πικρίας ἄνω φύουσα ἐνοχλῇ. But as it is, the participle ὑστερῶν creates an anacoluthon, for ὑστερῶν ἀπὸ τῆς χάριτος τοῦ θεοῦ is left incomplete.  
That’s the only grammatical difficulty, I think, and it’s not a very troublesome one. καὶ δι’αὐτῆς μιανθῶσιν πολλοί simply expands the immediately preceding clause, from which the μή but not the τις is carried over. And with μή τις πόρνος ἢ βέβηλος we easily understand a copula so that πόρνος ἢ βέβηλος is predicative (“seeing to it that no-one [is] a pornos”).

Poor Esau and his mess of pottage!