# Luke 23:31

**URL:** <https://www.textkit.com/t/luke-23-31/20381>\
**Category:** Koine and Biblical and Medieval Greek\
**Created:** [October 5, 2023, 2:08am UTC](https://www.textkit.com/t/luke-23-31/20381 "2023-10-05T02:08:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jeidsath](https://www.textkit.com/user_avatar/www.textkit.com/jeidsath/32/3_2.png) [@jeidsath](https://www.textkit.com/u/jeidsath)\
**Post date:** [October 5, 2023, 2:08am UTC](https://www.textkit.com/t/luke-23-31/20381/1 "2023-10-05T02:08:41Z")

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ὅτι εἰ ἐν ὑγρῷ ξύλῳ ταῦτα ποιοῦσιν, ἐν τῷ ξηρῷ τί γένηται;

This seemed so strange and unique to me. And there’s no example in the LSJ article for ἐν that is exactly similar\*. Blass gives however, in 157.f2: “An jmdm etwas tun” heisst auch ποιεῖν τι ἔν τινι Mt 17,12 Lk 23,31."

The cited Matthew 17:12 reads ἐποίησαν ἐν αὐτῷ ὅσα ἠθέλησαν

Similar in construction though not meaning were the LSJ’s cited instrumental uses of ἐν, at least to Luke 23:31a. In the first, God says to Moses in Ezekiel the Tragedian’s Exagoge (why couldn’t this have made it into the LXX?):

ΘΕΟΣ· **ἐν τῇδε ῥάβδῳ πάντα ποιήσεις κακά** ·  
πρῶτον μὲν αἷμα ποτάμιον ῥυήσεται  
πηγαί τε πᾶσαι καὶ ὑδάτων συστήματα·

The second citation for this construction says to compare magical papyrus [PMAG.Osl 1.108](https://papyri.info/dclp/64479): κατέχων ῥάβδον σιδηρᾶν, ἐν ᾗ ἀνέφραξας τὴν θάλασσαν καὶ διεπέρασας ἀνε\<κ\>ξηράνας πάντα τὰ φυτά

But however I wrap my head around ποιέω τι ἔν τινι (instrumental or something else), I’m still left with γένηται with ἔν τινι in Luke 23:31, and that seems even stranger. I am left wondering if the real sense is somehow of location, limiting the primary focus or origin of action to a particular individual or thing, uniting all four of these examples.

- Note, however, the composition section of the LSJ’s article on ἐν: “at a person, ἐγγελᾶν, ἐνυβρίζειν τινί.”