4 - Semitic Influence on the Clause in the Apocalypse

Summary

Basic to the structure of the Hebrew and Aramaic languages and that of Semitic languages generally is the distinction between noun and verbal clauses or sentences. A noun clause, according to the standard grammarians, has as both subject and predicate a noun or its equivalent (especially participles), e.g. Isa. 33:22 Yahweh malkēnū, ‘Yahweh [is] our king’. A verbal clause on the other hand always contains a finite verb as predicate, and a noun or pronoun for its subject, e.g. Gen. 1:3 wēyyō'mer 'ělōhîm, ‘and God said’.

This basic distinction between noun and verbal clauses is not of merely technical interest, but has an important role to play in expressing meaning, and according to Gesenius-Kautzsch, ‘is indispensable to the more delicate appreciation of Hebrew syntax … since it is by no means merely external or formal, but involves fundamental differences of meaning.

Noun-clauses with a substantive as predicate represent something fixed, a state or in short, a being so and so; verbal clauses on the other hand, something movable and in progress, an event or action.’

After noting this important point of Semitic syntax, one is led to inquire whether a distinction of such basic significance in the OT left its mark on biblical Greek. In answering this query, the noun clause will be considered first, followed by the verbal clause.