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Big Idea #1: Word endings, not word order, determine the function of words in a Greek sentence.

In English, it is clear who is doing the action of the sentence because the “doer” comes before the verb. For example, in the sentence, “Jesus loves the disciple,” we know that Jesus is one who gives the love because the word “Jesus” comes before the verb “loves.” You’ll recall that the term for this is subject—“Jesus” is the subject of our sentence. Similarly, in this sentence “disciple” receives the love that Jesus gives because this word follows the verb. Because “disciple” follows the verb, “disciple” is the object of the sentence.

Greek follows a different model for encoding the subject and object of a sentence: distinct endings are added to the word to communicate whether it is the subject or object. The most common ending to indicate that a word is the subject of the sentence (or clause) is -ος. The -ον ending is the most common one to indicate that a word is the object.

To illustrate this, let us consider a made-up language, Greenglish. This made-up language uses English vocabulary with Greek word endings. The -os is added to the subject (like the Greek -ος) and the -on is added to the object and accompanying article (like the Greek -ον). The sentence used earlier becomes, “Jesusos loves theon discipleon.” But there are several other ways to write this without changing the meaning:

Jesusos theon discipleon loves.

theon discipleon Jesusos loves.

theon discipleon loves Jesusos.

loves Jesusos theon discipleon.

loves theon discipleon Jesusos.

All these Greenglish sentences are easily deciphered because we can easily see the -os and -on endings on the words. This allows us to easily transpose the subjects, verbs, and objects to their normal location in English. Translate this sentence from Greenglish into English: eats theon snakeon theos personos. Be careful here! You don’t want the wrong creature getting eaten! The correct translation is, the person eats the snake. This sentence describes the time I ate python in Africa. Thankfully, I was not the meal that day!

There are two more common endings in Greenglish: -ou and -o. The -ou ending is used for possession, and the -o ending indicates the indirect object of the sentence. Add the English word “of” when translating the Greenglish -ou words, and add “to” when translating -o words. Translate this: theo childo theon bookon libraryou gave theos manos. In English this becomes: The man gave the book of the library to the child. Or: The man gave the library’s book to the child.

Let’s turn to Greek. The endings on Greek words are a little bit harder to recognize at first because they’re placed on words you don’t recognize. But once you begin to recognize the vocabulary, spotting the endings becomes easier and easier. Here are the endings you should work on recognizing at the moment—both in the singular and the plural:

	Singular	Plural
Nominative (≈subject)	-ος	-οι
Genitive (≈possessive)	-ου	-ων
Dative (≈indirect object)	-ῳ	-οις
Accusative (≈object)	-ον	-ους

Here are some simple Greek sentences and their English translations:

Original	Rearranged to English order	English
ὁ πατὴρ ἀγαπᾷ τὸν υἱὸν (John 3:35)	[no change]	The father loves the son.
ὁ δὲ θεὸς καὶ τὸν κύριον ἤγειρεν (1 Cor 6:14)	δὲ1 ὁ θεὸς καὶ ἤγειρεν τὸν κύριον	But God also raised the Lord.
εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους ὁ θάνατος διῆλθεν2 (Rom 5:12)	ὁ θάνατος διῆλθεν εἰς πάντας ἀνθρώπους	Death spread into all people.
τοῦτον τὸν Ἰησοῦν ἀνέστησεν ὁ θεός (Acts 2:32)	ὁ θεός ἀνέστησεν τοῦτον τὸν Ἰησοῦν	God raised up this Jesus.
ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον (John 3:16)	ὁ θεὸς ἠγάπησεν τὸν κόσμον	God loved the world.
ἔλαβεν οὖν τοὺς ἄρτους ὁ Ἰησοῦς (John 6:11)	ὁ Ἰησοῦς οὖν3 ἔλαβεν τοὺς ἄρτους	Jesus, therefore, took the “breads”

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Exercise 5

Directions: Reread John 16 from yesterday’s exercises. This time, though, try to locate the subject and object of every sentence, as well as any possessives or indirect objects. Try to build up your understanding of each verse.

Reminder: If you committed to spending an extra fifteen minutes per day, be sure to set aside time to do that today, too.

9. Although it is true that Greek word order is very flexible, there are limits to the rearrangeability of some words. The word δέ, for example, always comes second in its clause. I have rearranged it to the first position here to follow English order, but it would never occur here in “real” Koine Greek. Otherwise, this sentence could have been written this way in Greek.

10. This is not a perfect example, because the word in the accusative, ἀνθρώπους, is the object of the preposition εἰς, not of the verb. But it does illustrate the point that word order is more flexible in Greek than in English.

11. Here is another word that normally comes second in its clause in Greek.