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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - Matthew 11:27 - 11:27
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27. παρεδόθη. Strictly, ‘were delivered.’ The A.V. translates the aorist by a present in this passage, by a perfect definite the similar expression, ch. Mat 28:18, ἐδόθη μοι πᾶσα ἐξουσία ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς. It is not always easy to determine the force of the aorist in the N.T. (1) In classical Greek the aorist is occasionally used where the English idiom would require the perfect definite. But in such cases it is not correct to say that the English perfect and the Greek aorist denote precisely the same temporal idea, but rather that in some instances the Greeks marked an action only as past where our idiom connects the past action with the present by the use of the perfect definite. (2) Again, when the Greek aorist seems to be used for the present, the explanation is: (α) either that the action is past, but only just past—a point of time expressed by the English present, but more accurately indicated in Greek by the use of the aorist; e. g. the Greeks said accurately τί ἔλεξας; what didst thou say? when the words have scarcely passed the speaker’s lips; in English it is natural to translate this by the less exact ‘what sayest thou?’ (β) Or the action is one of indefinite frequency. Here again the English present takes the place of the Greek aorist. But in this idiom also the aorist retains its proper force. The Greeks only cared to express a single occurrence of the act, but from that single occurrence inferred the repetition of it. It will be observed that these usages are due to the singular (α) exactness and (β) rapidity of Greek thought.
In later Greek some of this exactness was doubtless lost, the aorist coming more and more into use, being an ‘aggressive tense,’ as Buttmann calls it, till in modern Greek the synthetic perfect has disappeared.
It is, however, possible probably in every instance in the N.T. to refer the aorist to one or other of the above-named classical uses, even where (1) the perfect and aorist are used in the same clause. As in Act 22:15, ἑώρακας = ‘hast seen’ (the image is still vividly present just now—past action connected with present time); καὶ ἤκουσας, ‘and didst hear’ (act regarded merely as past); so also in Jam 1:24, κατενόησεν γὰρ ἑαυτὸν καὶ ἀπελήλυθεν, the aorist marks the momentary act, the perfect the continuing effect. Cp. Medea, 293, οὐ νῦν με πρῶτον ἀλλὰ πολλάκις, Κρέον, | ἔβλαψε δόξα μεγάλα τʼ εἴργασται κακά, the effects of the evil remain now. Or (2) where the relation to the present is very close, as Luk 14:18, ἀγρὸν ἠγόρασα … γυναῖκα ἔγημα = ‘I have bought … married;’ see above (1). Or (3) where νῦν or νυνὶ is joined to the aorist. Here the temporal particle denotes the present order or state of things as contrasted with the past, not the present moment; as Col 1:21, νυνὶ δὲ ἀποκατηλλάγητε [or ἀποκατηλλαξεν]. See Bp. Lightfoot, ad loc. Cp. 1Pe 2:25.
In this passage and ch. Mat 28:18, the act indicated by the aorist is placed in the eternal past, where the notion of time is lost, but as an eternal fact may be regarded as ever present, this aspect of the aorist is properly represented by the English present tense.
ἐπιγινώσκει, as distinguished from the simple verb, implies a further and therefore a more perfect and thorough knowledge. ἵνα ἐπιγνῷς, Luk 1:4, ‘that thou mayest perfectly know.’ ἐπίγνωσις is used especially of the knowledge of God and of Christ as being the perfection of knowledge. Bp. Lightfoot, Col 1:9.