Matthew 1:6, continued

And the rest of the verse . . .

Δαυίδ δε εγέννησεν τον Σολομώνα εκ της του Ουρίου

Here, we have an entire story in a few short words, and a grammatical variation. Word-for-word, this part of the verse reads:

David and/_ fathered the Solomon out of her (out of the (female) one) of the Uriah.

The word 'της' is the genitive form of the feminine, singular definite article (e.g., της Μαρίας - of the Maria), but here it is used on its own, somewhat as a pronoun, without directly naming the woman it refers to. She is the one 'of Uriah,' i.e., Uriah's wife, Bathsheba. (For the story itself, see 2 Samuel, chapter 11).

In translation, the Jerusalem Bible adds a bit of explanation: 'David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife.'

The NRVS reads: 'And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah'.

Matthew 1:6

Now we come to the end of the first series of begats, which began with Abraham, and ends with King David:

Ιεσσαί δε εγέννησεν τον Δαυίδ τον βασιλέα.

Jesse and/_ fathered the David the king.

Note that in modern Greek pronounciation, 'Δαυίδ' is pronounced thav-EETH. The 'αυ' vowel combination is pronounced 'av' (as in avant garde), and so we get the English 'v' sound in the middle of the word. The 'th' sounds are confusing, however, because there is no simple way to distinguish in typescript between the two versions of the 'th' sound in English: 'though' vs. 'thought'. The Greek delta ('δ') is pronounced the first way, as in 'though'.

The New King James Version translates this as 'and Jesse begot David the king.' Both the NIV and the NRSV read 'and Jesse the father of King David.'

The word 'βασιλέα' means 'king.' It is in the accusative case, because King David is the object of the verb εγέννησεν. The dictionary (nominative) form of this word is ο βασιλέυς ('the king').

One of the most useful ways of learning Greek vocabulary is to learn words in cognate groups; that is, to learn a group of words that are related to each other. For example, in the case of βασιλεύς we also have:

βασιλεύω - the verb meaning 'to rule, be king, become king'
η βασιλεία - a noun meaning 'kingdom, reign, royal power'
η βασίλισσα - the noun meaning 'queen'
βασίλειος - an adjective meaning 'royal'
βασιλικός - another adjective, also meaning 'royal'

This isn't the end of the verse; we will continue on tomorrow with the descendants of King David.

Matthew 1:5

Σαλμών δε εγέννησεν τον Βόες εκ της Ραχάβ,

Βόες δε εγέννησεν τον Ιωβήδ εκ της Ρουθ,

Ιωβήδ δε εγέννησεν τον Ιεσσαί


Word-for-word this verse reads


Salmon and/_ fathered the Boaz out of the Rahab,

Boaz and/_ fathered the Obed out of the Ruth,

Obed and/_ fathered the Jesse

Two more women are mentioned - Rahab and Ruth. "Out of" sounds odd to the modern reader; this prepositional phrase is variously translated. For example, the NIV (New International Version) begins:

Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab

The NRSV (New Revised Standard Version) reads:

and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab.

The Orthodox Study Bible (the New Testament of this Bible is based on the New King James Version) reads:

Salmon begot Boaz by Rahab.

What is an interlinear Bible?

An interlinear Bible contains the text of the bible in one language with a word-for-word translation in another language between each line.

Generally, one of the languages is the original Hebrew (for the Old Testament) or Greek (for the New Testament), with the second language being a modern one (e.g., English).
For example, see this page of Matthew in an on-line interlinear New Testament:

http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/NTpdf/mat1.pdf

This particular interlinear uses all capital letters for the original Greek, and also uses the 'C' form for the letter sigma, i.e. βίβλος becomes ΒΙΒΛΟC.

A short perusal of interlinear texts will give you a good idea of how much work needs to be done to make a translation. It is - in my opinion - impossible to make a translation of any text which preserves both the exact word order and reasonable intelligibility.

It would be possible, of course, to generate an interlinear Bible for any two languages; whether this is ever done for contemporary languages (e.g., English and and Japanese) I do not know.

Matthew 1:4, and a few words about the aorist tense

Αράμ δε εγέννησεν τον Αμιναδάβ

Αμιναδάβ δε εγέννησεν τον Ναασσών

Ναασσών δε εγέννησεν τον Σαλμών


Aram and/_ fathered the Amminadab

Amminadab and/_ fathered the Nahshon

Nahshon and/_ fathered the Salmon

The word 'εγέννησεν', as mentioned before, is a verb meaning 'become the parent of' or 'father' (as a verb) or 'beget' or (in reference to a woman) 'bear'. In these verses, this verb is in the aorist tense. Although Greek verb tenses do not correspond exactly to English verb tenses, for now we can translate this as a simple past:

he fathered/ he begat/ he became the father of


Greek verbs are inflected for person. So, for example, we would have the following possible forms:

εγέννησα - I fathered/bore
εγέννησας - you (singular) fathered/bore
εγέννησεν - he fathered/she bore
εγεννήσαμε - we fathered/bore
εγεννήσατε - you (plural) fathered/bore
εγέννησαν - they fathered/bore


All these forms are in the aorist tense. Note that the ending of the verb changes according to the subject (I, you, he, she, etc.) Note also that the verb will be translated differently according to the subject ('fathered' if the subject of the phrase is male; 'bore' if the subject is female).

Matthew 1:3

Ιούδας δε εγέννησεν τον Φάρες και τον Ζάρα εκ της Θαμάρ

Literally, this reads

Judah and/_ fathered the Perez and the Zerah out of the Tamar

Once again, the 'δε' is post-positive, so should be moved to the beginning of the phrase. But the new element here is the final part of the phrase:

εκ της Θαμάρ

Tamar is a woman. We know this because the definite article ('the') preceding her name is in the female, genitive form: 'της' instead of 'του' for a male. The word 'Θαμάρ' would be in the genitive, too, but in this particular case (as for many proper names) the special genitive case ending is not apparent.

But why the genitive case in the first place? The word 'εκ', immediately preceding, is the reason. This small word is a preposition (in English, words like 'in', 'on', 'from', etc.) and the rules of koine Greek grammar say that the noun that follows this particular preposition must be in the genitive case.

What does 'εκ' mean? Generally speaking, it means 'out of'. So 'εκ της Θαμάρ' means, word-for-word, 'out of the Tamar'. 'Out of' is a rather old-fashioned way of saying that Tamar was the mother of these two sons (Perez and Zerah) of Judah. Judah fathered them 'out of' Tamar.


Continuing on, we have

Φάρες δε εγέννησεν τον Εσρώμ,
Εσρώμ δε εγέννησεν τον Αράμ.

Perez and/_ fathered the Hezron
Hezron and/_ fathered the Aram.

This part of the verse presents no new difficulties, outside of the unusual (for us) names. By now you should be able to move the 'δε' to the beginning of the phrase, and remove 'the' before proper names.

And Perez fathered Hezron
and Hezron fathered Aram.

Note that I have used standard English transliterations for proper names, some of which don't make exact sense according to the sound of the letters. Although mostly standardized, you will find some variations in different English translations: 'Ram' instead of 'Aram', for example.

The next verse: Matthew 1: 2

This verse begins the 'begats': that is, the verses reviewing the lineage of Jesus from Abraham to "Joseph, the husband of Mary."

The verses have a standard form, expressed in English something like "Abraham was the father of Isaac":

Αβραάμ εγέννησεν τον Ισαάκ

The Greek noun for 'father,' however, does not appear. Instead the word-for-word translation would be:

Abraham became-the-parent-of ('begat' or 'fathered') the Isaac.

'Became-the-parent-of' is a translation of the verb 'εγέννησεν' (eh-YEH-nee-sen). The definite article 'τον' (i.e., 'the') is used before Isaac. This usage, which sounds so strange in English, is relatively common in koine Greek, and obligatory in modern Greek.

Continuing on we have:

Ισαάκ δε εγέννησεν τον Ιακώβ

Isaac and/_ fathered the Jacob

The Greek word 'δε' has no exact equivalent in English. It expresses a conjunction of phrases, and can be variously translated as 'and' or 'but' -- or 'δε' can even be left out entirely. If you check a few English translations of this verse you will see the various ways that 'δε' has been dealt with.

The word 'δε' is called a postpositive conjunction, which means that it cannot be the first word in a phrase.

So a better translation in English would be

And Isaac fathered Jacob

with the 'and' moved to the beginning of the phrase.


Continuing on, we have:

Ιακώβ δε εγέννησεν τον Ιούδαν και τους αδελφούς αυτού.

Jacob and/_ fathered the Judah and the brothers of him.

Several important, and common, words are introduced here. 'Και' is the usual conjunction for 'and', although it can have other meanings depending on context. The word 'αυτού' means 'of him', and is an example of a pronoun. It is in the genitive case.

Ο αδελφός means 'the brother' (Philadelphia - the city of brotherly love). Here we see the word in the plural, accusative form: 'τους αδελφούς' ('the brothers', as the direct object of the verb εγέννησεν).

Note that not only does the noun itself change form depending on its usage (αδελφός/αδελφούς) but also the definite article (ο/τους). Both 'ο' and 'τους' mean 'the'.

The 'begat' verses offer a good opportunity to practice pronounciation. Again, you are encouraged to read the verses aloud before working out their meaning.