It's all Greek to me

"beautiful words"

Genesis 49:21

Feels like high time for a grammar lesson, doesn't it?  Don't you feel that?  Although today's lesson is about word choice, not really parts of speech.   Hopefully that will bring back the six of you who recoiled in horror when I used the word "grammar". 

Look at these three verses:

"Now after the piece of bread, satan entered (Judas).  Then Jesus said to him, "What you do, do quickly." (John 13:27)

"Having received the piece of bread, he then went out immediately." (John 13:30)

"If God is glorified in the Son of Man, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and glorify Him immediately." (John 13:32)

{*All three are in the New King James translation}

See what they all have in common?  Speed.  But let's look at the differences.

Verses 27 is interesting to me because of the action going on.  Jesus had dipped the bread, and then handed it to Judas, which was a gesture of honor.  But Judas rejected the love that accompanied that bread, and when he did so, satan entered him.  Back when he had met with the authorities to plot Jesus' betrayal, Judas had been possessed by evil thought.  He was now possessed. 

Jesus' next statement is a bit of a surprise, I think.  But it reveals to us exactly the same emotion we'll see in the garden of Gethsemane, when He would fall on His face in prayer, and sweat drops of blood... "What you are going to do, do quickly."

That word "quickly" is the Greek word tachion, which means "more quickly".  The usage notes say that it's a comparison, with the second member of the comparison omitted.  But at first I couldn't figure out what the comparison was.  What you are going to do, do more quickly than what?

I found the answer in the Amplified translation, which says: "What you are going to do, do more swiftly than you seem to intend."  Though He would yet ask His Father for the cup of crucifixion to pass by Him, it's as if He was saying, "Let's get this over with."  It's so hard for us to imagine, isn't it?

Now, verses 30 and 32 both use the English word "immediately".  But two different words are shown in the Greek.  In verse 30, it's the word eutheos, which is pretty much immediately the way we understand it in English.

But in verse 32, it's the word euthys.  That can also mean now, or right away, but a better English word to use here is "straightaway".  It's not really a measure of time, but of quantity.  Think of the word "straightaway" as it pertains to a racetrack; it just means the straight part, right?  Well this is the picture of God glorifying Jesus, as Jesus glorified God through His words and actions.  The glory is straight and level, and at a measure equal to the glory given to God.

English.  Greek.  Aramaic.  Hebrew.  No matter what language you're reading it in, there's more to this wonderful book than meets the eye.  Reading, studying, pondering, memorizing ~ in the truest sense, we can never get enough!

~ "all peoples, nations and languages

should serve Him"

Daniel 7:14

~