The Basics of Greek Verbs

This chapter will provide an overview of the Greek verbal system. It will include a discussion of (1) person and number, (2) voice, (3) mood, and (4) tense and aspect. In it, you will also learn the present indicative form of the verb εἰμί (“I am”). We will be surveying a lot of information in this chapter, but you are not expected to understand all of it thoroughly. We will be revisiting relevant information from this chapter in future chapters, so you can always turn back here and review basic concepts as you progress in your study of Greek.

In the Greek language, the verb is the foundation of the sentence. A verb is a word that conveys an action or state. An action verb typically requires an act of will to perform the action (“I run”). A stative verb describes a state or condition (“I am thirsty”). Verbs in English are somewhat limited since they only communicate the action being performed (e.g., “hunting”). More words are needed to be more precise. For example, to say “I am hunting,” it requires three words (“I” = pronoun; “am” = helping/auxiliary verb; “hunting” = main verbal idea). In contrast, verbs in Greek are very compact. They communicate a considerable amount of information through a single word. For example, to communicate the idea of “we are loosing” in Greek, only one word (λύομεν) is required since Greek verbs express both person and number through attached endings (in this example, -ομεν communicates that the verb has a first person plural subject = “we”). Furthermore, a separate term is not needed for the word “are” since that information is communicated by the single verbal form itself.

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul rebukes the Corinthians because they are seeking spiritual gifts for the purpose of self-exaltation rather than service. He ends with this censure: “You only want the better gifts, but I will show you the best thing to do” (1 Cor 12:31 GW). Following this rebuke, the apostle pens his famous chapter on love, 1 Corinthians 13.

But is that a proper understanding of the flow of the passage?

Most modern English translations actually end chapter 12 with an apostolic concession rather than a correction. The ESV is typical: “But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way” (1 Cor 12:31).

So, the ESV (and most other modern English translations) render Paul’s statement about “greater/better gifts” as a command rather than a statement: “Eagerly desire” vs. “You only want” (GW). As you will soon know, the underlying Greek verb rendered here as “desire” (command) or “want” (observation) is ambiguous in form; the verb could be an imperative or an indicative. Only the context can help you determine which meaning is intended by the author. Most translation committees have judged that it is more likely for Paul to make a positive concession about the “greater” gifts (of teaching and prophecy, for example) at the end of his argument. In other words, such public gifts, when used for building up the body of Christ, are of widespread ecclesiastical benefit. It is right to desire them, as long as one does so with the intent of using them properly.

Without access to the Greek text, something else of significance is obscured in the English translations of 1 Cor 12:31. Paul’s command is in the plural—“you all eagerly desire.” Although there is individualistic application of this desire, it is a yearning that the community should have. It is improper to desire public gifts for one’s own exaltation, but it is good to want God to raise up persons who are gifted for the edification of the local church. Indeed, to pray for and desire such teachers/preachers is to believe the apostle Paul’s teaching in Eph 4:11–12—that the exalted Lord graciously dispenses Spirit-enabled leaders as his gifts to the church.

As stated above, Greek verb endings communicate information regarding the subject of the verb. That is, they communicate the person and number of the one performing the action (active voice) or the one who is receiving the action (passive voice). Thus, person refers to the subject of the verbal idea. The options for the person of the verb are these: first person (“I” or “we”), second person (“you” [singular or plural]), or third person (“he/she/it” or “they”).

Similarly, number refers to whether there is only one person related to the action of the verb (“I,” “you” sg, or “he/she/it”) or more than one person (“we,” “you” pl, or “they”). Note, in formal English, the same form (“you”) is used for both singular and plural second person communication, but in colloquial English, there are various regional preferences for the second person plural (e.g., “y’all,” “you guys,” “you’uns”).

In Greek, each person and number (six in all) has a different ending which identifies the subject of the verb. Typically, the verb will agree with the subject of the sentence in both person and number. This agreement is known as concord. For example, in the sentence “the Lord himself will descend” (1 Thess 4:16), both the verb (καταβήσεται) and the subject (ὁ κύριος) are third person singular. A he-subject requires a he-verb. Occasionally, however, there is discord when the subject and the verb do not formally agree in person and number.

In the next chapter, you will begin learning the regular endings of Greek verbs.

The voice of a verb indicates the way in which the subject relates to the action or state expressed by the verb. There are three voices in Greek:

Active Voice

In the active voice, the subject performs the action (“I see a tree”). Verbs can be either transitive or intransitive. Transitive verbs are those that can take a direct object. If someone states, “I see,” the listener will naturally want to know what it is that the person saw. The direct object, then, complements (or completes) the verb (e.g., “I see a tree”). Intransitive verbs do not take direct objects to complete their meaning (e.g., “I am walking”). Active verbs will often have direct objects, unless they are intransitive (or stative) verbs.

Middle Voice

In the middle voice, the subject both performs the action and is in some way affected by the action. Because there is no exact parallel in English, beginning Greek students often struggle with the middle voice. Many learn to translate the middle voice as a reflexive idea (“I see myself”), but the reflexive meaning is actually quite rare for the Greek middle voice. More common is special interest (“I see for myself”), but often an explicit special interest translation is misleading as well.

Many verbs that have active forms can also have middle forms. For example, “we ask” can be either αἰτῶμεν (active) or αἰτώμεθα (middle). Some verbs, however, have no active form. Many older grammars refer to these as deponent verbs. The word “deponent” comes from the Latin verb deponō, which means “I set aside.” Deponency, then, is the idea that all verbs began with an active form, but that some verbs became defective and laid aside their active form. Consequently, it is thought that deponent verbs are middle (or passive) in form but are active in meaning. Recent Greek scholarship favors laying aside the category of deponency itself. The majority of Greek scholars contend that we should understand the middle voice as the ancient Greeks did rather than fitting it into our English language (or Latin language) categories.

So-called deponent verbs are better viewed as middle-only verbs. That is, some verbs have no active voice because, to ancient Greeks, the activity these verbs describe was inherently “subject affected” in a way that demanded they be marked by middle voice endings. Passive voice endings (see below) frequently convey a middle voice idea in the Koine period. One way to distinguish middle-only verbs is to note that their lexical forms (i.e., dictionary forms which are typically first person singular forms) end with -ομαι instead of -ω (see, e.g., ἀποκρίνομαι, γίνομαι, ἔρχομαι, or πορεύομαι). The following sampling of categories demonstrates the wide usage of the middle voice.

• Reciprocity: A verb of reciprocity is “where two parties are involved and where the removal of one party would render the verb meaningless.” Such verbs are commonly middle only (δέχομαι, “I take, receive, welcome”; ἀποκρίνομαι, “I answer, reply”).

• Movement: Verbs of movement, in which the subject is both acting and immediately affected by the action, are often middle only (ἔρχομαι, “I come, go”; πορεύομαι, “I go, travel”).

• Self-Involvement: Verbs of thinking (intellectual activities), feeling (emotional states), and deciding (volitional activities) are frequently middle-only (λογίζομαι, “I consider, reckon”; βούλομαι, “I wish, want, desire”).

• Passivity: Verbs in which the subject is passive in the sense that he or she does not choose or cannot refuse to be the subject of the action (γίνομαι, “I am,” “I become”; κοιμάομαι, “I fall asleep,” “I die”; μαίνομαι, “I am insane”).

Passive Voice

In the passive voice, the subject does not perform the action but receives the action (“I was seen [by someone else]”). In this sense, then, the subject is passive and the one performing the action (i.e., the agent) is either implied or referenced typically by using a prepositional phrase. For example, when Paul states, “we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Cor 1:4 ESV), the subject “we” is not performing an action but is passive because something is happening to them (God is comforting them). The one performing the act is God, but grammatically he is not the subject of the sentence since the agent of the action is given in a prepositional phrase (“by God”).

Occasionally, the passive voice is used with no agent mentioned. For example, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches that “those who mourn” are “blessed” since “they will be comforted” (Matt 5:4). It is understood that those who mourn will be comforted by God. When God is the implied agent of a passive verb, it is called a “divine passive.” If the sentence were in the active voice, it would state, “God will comfort them.”

The mood of a verb indicates an author’s understanding of the verbal action’s relation to reality—that is, whether the author views the event as factual, possible, desired, commanded, contingent, etc. There are four moods in Greek:

• The indicative mood represents something as certain or asserted (“He went fishing” or “Will he go fishing?”). Statements in the indicative mood do not necessarily indicate an objective fact. By using the indicative mood, the author or speaker is choosing to present his speech as factual, at least for consideration. Consequently, it is possible for someone to lie (see Acts 6:13) or be mistaken (see Luke 7:39) while using the indicative mood.

• The subjunctive mood represents something as probable, contingent, or indefinite (“He might go fishing” or “Whenever he goes fishing”).

• The optative mood represents something as possible or hoped for (“I wish he would go fishing”).

• The imperative mood represents something as requested or commanded (“Go fishing” or “Please, go fishing”).

Although participles and infinitives are not technically “moods” since they are dependent on main verbs, for purposes of convenience they will be labeled as such when parsed (i.e., when describing all the grammatical elements of a verb).

New Testament Greek has six tenses: present, future, imperfect, aorist, perfect, and pluperfect. The following are examples in the active voice and indicative mood.

Only in the indicative mood is there any inherent element of time communicated by the verbal form; even then, it is a secondary element of meaning. Beyond the inherent lexical meaning of the verb, the primary element of meaning communicated by both indicative and non-indicative verbal forms is something called verbal aspect.

Verbal Aspect is the subjective perspective or viewpoint from which an author communicates the action of a verb. Because time is relevant only in the indicative mood, in Greek, verbal aspect is the more dominant force of the verb’s tense. In English (a time-focused language), the word “tense” is essentially synonymous with time. For that reason, we are tempted to refer to Greek “tense-forms” rather than “tenses”—to remind you that time is a secondary element in the indicative verbal forms and completely contextually determined in non-indicative forms. Yet, conforming to centuries of standard usage, we will usually use the label “tense” by itself. But, please remember that Greek verbs primarily communicate the author’s portrayal of an action. Greek is an “aspect prominent” language, unlike English, which is more “time prominent.”

Most scholars agree that there are three aspects in New Testament Greek.

• Imperfective Aspect (present and imperfect tenses): the author depicts the action as ongoing or in process, without attention to the action’s beginning or ending. Depending on the context, the action might be depicted as incomplete (“was or is happening”), inceptive (“started to happen”), durative (“continues to happen”), or some other kind of process. One scholar has called the imperfective aspect the “progressive perspective” of the author.

• Perfective Aspect (aorist tense): the author depicts the action as complete or as a whole. The beginning and ending of the action (and everything in-between) are included in the depiction of the action. The perfective aspect describes a given action simply as occurring or as having occurred without indicating how the action took place (“it happened”). The perfective aspect has been called the “wholistic perspective” of the author. Greek grammarians debate whether the future tense presents action with perfective aspect or is aspectually non-specific. We are inclined to think the future tense should also be understood as conveying perfective aspect.

• Stative Aspect (perfect and pluperfect tenses): the author depicts a state of affairs or ongoing relevance resulting from a previous action or state (“it has happened, and it is relevant to the present context”). Depending on the context, there can be more emphasis on the completion of the action or its ongoing relevance. This aspect has also been called the “combinative aspect” because it often combines elements of ongoing (imperfective) relevance with a wholly (perfective) completed past action.

In the indicative mood, tenses include both the time of action and the author’s perspective on the action (aspect), but the author’s perspective (aspect) is primary. In non-indicative mood verbs, however, time drops out with only the aspect remaining. With non-indicative mood verbs, time is communicated by the literary context.

As mentioned in chapter 2, Greek is a highly inflected language that makes changes to words through various morphemes. It is important, therefore, to analyze these morphemes, including a word’s stem and various affixes (i.e., prefixes, infixes, and suffixes). The stem is the word’s uninflected part to which affixes may be added and carries its basic (lexical) meaning. A prefix is a morpheme that is added in front of the stem; an infix is placed in between the stem and the suffix; and the suffix is placed at the end of the word.

The connecting vowel (or variable/theme vowel) is an example of a verbal infix, and the personal ending is an example of a suffix. The personal ending identifies the built-in subject of the verb, specifying both the person and number (e.g., -ομεν = “we”).

The verb εἰμί is common, so it will be helpful to learn this verb first. The difficulty with this verb is that it is somewhat irregular, similar to the verb “to be” in English (I am, you are, he is, we are, you are, they are). Learn this paradigm well! Please note that the subject information is included within the verb form itself. For example, it is not necessary to explicitly include a “he” (αὐτός) in the sentence. The verb ἐστίν, by itself, is translated “he/she/it is.” If an explicit subject is present in Greek, however, the translator should not provide an additional “he/she/it” for the verb. χριστὸς ἐστίν is translated “Christ is,” not “Christ, he is.”

Because εἰμί is a copulative or equative verb, it does not take a direct object (which would typically be in the accusative case); it takes a predicate nominative. A predicate nominative is another nominative form that predicates (asserts/claims) something about the other nominative form (subject nominative) in the sentence. As a result, in a sentence that includes εἰμί, there will often be two nouns in the nominative case: the subject (nominative) and the predicate nominative. For example, in the sentence ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν (“God is love”; 1 John 4:8), the subject is ὁ θεός, and the predicate nominative is ἀγάπη (both in the nominative case). Sometimes the verb εἰμί is not expressed but is implied: πιστὸς ὁ θεός (“God is faithful”; 1 Cor 1:9). Finally, the subject of the verb may be impersonal: οὐκ ἔστιν θέλημα ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ πατρὸς ὑμῶν (“it is not the will of your Father”; Matt 18:14).

In Koine Greek literature, the nu (ν) for the third personal singular (ἐστίν) and plural (εἰσίν) endings is sometimes missing. This is known as a movable nu. Most of the time, however, the nu is present. This is especially true for the third person forms of εἰμί in the New Testament. For example, the verb εἰμί occurs almost 900 times in the present active indicative third singular (ἐστίν), and the movable nu is only missing once. Additionally, the third person plural form (εἰσίν) occurs more than 150 times; every time it occurs, the movable nu is present.

Because εἰμί expresses a state (and not an action), it technically is a stative verb (referring to a state of existence) rather than having an active, middle, or passive voice. Yet, we can also observe that εἰμί follows active voice endings in the present and imperfect tenses, but middle voice endings in the future tense.

A. Paradigms: Memorize the present active indicative paradigm of εἰμί (see section 4.8). (Learn to sing it if possible.) Write out the paradigm ten times from memory. Include the English meanings.

B. Person and Number: Choose the correct pronoun that would correspond to the description of the person and number.

C. Voice: Identify the highlighted verbs in the following sentences as active (A), middle (M), or passive (P). Middle voice will be nearly impossible to detect in English translation alone, so verbal forms that are middle in Greek have an asterisk (*).

D. Aspect: Indicate whether the descriptions below best describe the Imperfective (I), Perfective (P), or Stative (S) aspect.

E. Translation: Translate the following sentences.

1. εἰμι ὁ ἄρτος (bread) τῆς ζωῆς (John 6:48).

2. βασιλεὺς (king, nominative) Ἰσραήλ (genitive) ἐστιν (Matt 27:42).

3. ναὸς (temple) θεοῦ ἐσμεν (2 Cor 6:16).

4. υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ εἰμι (John 10:36).

5. εἰμι ἡ ὁδὸς (way) καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια καὶ ἡ ζωη (John 14:6).

6. ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν (1 John 4:16).

7. εἰμι τὸ ἄλφα καὶ τὸ ὦ (Rev 1:8).

8. υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου ἐστίν (John 5:27).

9. ἐσμὲν τέκνα θεοῦ (Rom 8:16).

10. ἐστιν ὁ Χριστός; (John 7:26). [Remember, what looks like an English semicolon (;) represents a question mark in Greek.]

F. Translation: Translate the following sentences into Greek. Include breathing marks, but not accents.

1. The church is the temple of God.

2. The words of truth are of the Lord.

3. The heart of man is sin.

4. Heaven and earth are the glory of Jesus.

5. The sign of the kingdom of God is the gospel.