Sunday, October 13, 2024

Matthew 10:28

A couple weeks ago, the Daily Dose of Greek went over Matthew 10:28:

καὶ μὴ φοβεῖσθε ἀπὸ τῶν ἀποκτεννόντων τὸ σῶμα, τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν μὴ δυναμένων ἀποκτεῖναι· φοβεῖσθε δὲ μᾶλλον τὸν δυνάμενον καὶ ψυχὴν καὶ σῶμα ἀπολέσαι ἐν γεέννῃ.

'And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.  Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.'  [ESV]
I noticed that there's a chiastic structure between ἀποκτεννόντων τὸ σῶμα (in which the direct object comes last) and τὴν δὲ ψυχὴν μὴ δυναμένων ἀποκτεῖναι (in which the direct object comes first), and this inversion highlights the sort of opposite nature of "killing" and "not being able to kill."

This same structure is also in the Latin Vulgate:  "et nolite timere eos qui occidunt corpus animam autem non possunt occidere sed potius eum timete qui potest et animam et corpus perdere in gehennam."