Matthew 7:29

I think it was even before the Daily Dose of Greek got to Matthew 7:29 that I noticed that it has the same feature that I noted in Mark 1:22 a few months ago.  (I'd lookt ahead after watching the Daily Dose video on verse 28.)

ἦν γὰρ διδάσκων αὐτοὺς ὡς ἐξουσίαν ἔχων καὶ οὐχ ὡς οἱ γραμματεῖς αὐτῶν.

In the ESV, this is translated as "For he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes," but ἔχων is a participle, so it's actually more like "he was teaching them as one having authority...."  Because participles are verbal adjectives, there's some of the dynamic element of a verb here, and it contrasts with the more static nature of the noun γραμματεῖς (scribes).

As with Mark 1:22, the participial ἐξουσίαν ἔχων is retained in the Vulgate ("potestatem habens") and my French New Testament ("ayant authorité"), but it's rendered as a prepositional phrase ("mit Vollmacht") in my German New Testament.

Matthew 7:25, 27

A few weeks ago, I watched the Daily Dose of Greek videos on Matthew 7:25 and Matthew 7:27:

καὶ κατέβη ἡ βροχὴ καὶ ἦλθον οἱ ποταμοὶ καὶ ἔπνευσαν οἱ ἄνεμοι, καὶ προσέπεσαν τῇ οἰκίᾳ ἐκείνῃ, καὶ οὐκ ἔπεσεν· τεθεμελίωτο γὰρ ἐπὶ τὴν πέτραν.

καὶ κατέβη ἡ βροχὴ καὶ ἦλθον οἱ ποταμοὶ καὶ ἔπνευσαν οἱ ἄνεμοι, καὶ προσέκοψαν τῇ οἰκίᾳ ἐκείνῃ, καὶ ἔπεσεν· καὶ ἦν ἡ πτῶσις αὐτῆς μεγάλη.

In the ESV, these verses are:

And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.

And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.

It wasn't until looking at the Vulgate that I realized that both of these verses exhibit polysyndeton (the repeated καὶ, translated as "and").  In my copy of the Vulgate, the first part of each of these verses is formatted as:

et descendit pluvia

et venerunt flumina

et flaverunt venti

et inruerunt in domum illam

which makes the polysyndeton obvious.  Here, it highlights the multitude of forces assaulting the houses.  In the Greek and the Latin, the verbs (the first three, at least) precede their respective nouns, and this structure may also heighten the sense of action.

Additionally, the formatting of the Latin suggests (to me, anyway) that "flaverunt" (ἔπνευσαν, blew) and "inruerunt" (προσέπεσαν/προσέκοψαν, beat) have different subjects (the explicit "venti," ἄνεμοι, "winds" and an inflected "they," respectively), resulting in a slightly different translation:  "And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they [all three forces!] beat on that house."  Like the polysyndeton and the inverted structure, this reading also highlights the intensity of the elements' assault on the houses.

[For what it's worth, I also wrote about this passage a few years ago.]

Matthew 7:17-19

A few weeks ago, I watched the Daily Dose of Greek videos on Matthew 7:17-19:

17 οὕτως πᾶν δένδρον ἀγαθὸν καρποὺς καλοὺς ποιεῖ, τὸ δὲ σαπρὸν δένδρον καρποὺς πονηροὺς ποιεῖ.  18 οὐ δύναται δένδρον ἀγαθὸν καρποὺς πονηροὺς ποιεῖν οὐδὲ δένδρον σαπρὸν καρποὺς καλοὺς ποιεῖν.  19 πᾶν δένδρον μὴ ποιοῦν καρπὸν καλὸν ἐκκόπτεται καὶ εἰς πῦρ βάλλεται.

In the ESV, these verses are:

17 'So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.  18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.  19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.'

In each of these verses, the phrase "good fruit" alliterates and has a balanced number of syllables, even though it's plural in verses 17 and 18 (καρποὺς καλοὺς) but singular in verse 19 (καρπὸν καλὸν).  These features provide a euphony that matches the description "good."

Matthew 7:3

A couple weeks ago, I watched the Daily Dose of Greek video on Matthew 7:3:

"'Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?'" [ESV]

Even before Dr. Plummer mentioned it in the video, I noticed that the verse has a chiastic structure:

τί δὲ βλέπεις

τὸ κάρφος

τὸ ἐν τῷ ὀφθαλμῷ τοῦ ἀδελφοῦ σου,

τὴν δὲ ἐν τῷ σῷ ὀφθαλμῷ

δοκὸν

οὐ κατανοεῖς;

Something like:

Why do you see

the speck

that is in your brother's eye,

but that is in your own eye

the log

you do not notice?

Since the words in the two clauses appear in an inverted order, this structure highlights the contrast between βλέπεις ("you do see") and οὐ κατανοεῖς ("you do not notice") and perhaps also between the sizes of τὸ κάρφος ("the speck") and τὴν δοκὸν ("the log").

Matthew 7:24-27

Near the beginning of the month, I read a few chapters from Matthew.  Matthew 7:24-27 contains Jesus' explanation that those who hear and follow His words are like a man who built his house on a rock, "and the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock" (verse 25).  After I read this, I realized that the house is assaulted from all sides:  the rain descends from above; flood waters rise up from beneath; and the winds come from lateral directions.  While the house built on a rock is contrasted with the house built on sand, which "fell, and great was the fall of it" (verse 27), the fortitude of the house built on a rock is also illustrated simply in the elements it withstands and the various directions from which they come.