Difficulty with morphology search for "fear" in the New Testament Greek Text

Jim
Jim Member Posts: 731 ✭✭✭
edited November 2024 in English Forum

In Hebrews 4:1, "let us fear" would be the translation of  Φοβηθῶμεν according to the NA27 text. The Strong's number given in NASB95 and ESV interlinear mode is 5399 which when hovered over shows Dictionary of Biblical Languages entry 5828 φοβέομαι which is a middle deponent verb.

Why does this morphology search show no results?

My real goal is to find out all the uses this type of hortatory subjunctive with the verb "fear" but I can't get any results at all. Can anyone help me figure out how to do this search?

Just as an aside I don't understand why

  • the NASB95 and ESV interlinears give Louw Nida number of 25.251, φόβος, which is a noun not a verb
  • the morphology tag in the NASB95 and ESV interlinear mode indicates passive when the verb given in the DBL is middle deponent, and the passive voice doesn't make any sense in the context

Have a great day,
jmac

Comments

  • Andrew Batishko
    Andrew Batishko Member, Community Manager, Logos Employee Posts: 5,487

    I believe the correct lemma form is φοβέω

    If you right click on the word in NA27, you can select the lemma form (#1 above), then select the morph search on the left side (#2 above). This will open a new search window with a search that will find all instances of the lemma form of the selected word that match the morphology.

    I'm not a Greek scholar, but If I understand correctly from resources in my library, you can search for hortatory subjunctives by altering this search to: lemma:φοβέω@V??S1P
    This will match all uses of the lemma with Subjunctive-First Person-Plural verbs.

    Andrew Batishko | Logos software developer

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 36,133

    Jim said:

    I don't understand why

    • the NASB95 and ESV interlinears give Louw Nida number of 25.251, φόβος, which is a noun not a verb

    Jim said:

    The Strong's number is 5399 which when hovered over shows Dictionary of Biblical Languages entry 5828 φοβέομαι

    There are some incorrect links from the lemma to Louw-Nida and DBL Greek that Faithlife should investigate, but using Strong's number this way will lead to incorrect conclusions. If you look at the entry in Enhanced Strong's Lexicon (ESL) you will see it is linked to two lemmas. So when you link** Strong's numbers to DBL Greek, only the first entry (5828) for G5399 will be shown instead of 5830.

    ** if you prioritize DBL Greek as your #1 Greek lexicon it will also be #1 for Greek Strong's numbers! Advanced prioritization can be used to correct this e.g.

    1. ESL --> restrict to Greek Strong's numbers

    2. DBL Greek   ---> still #1 for Greek lemmas!

    Do the same for Hebrew Strong's and DBL Hebrew.

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

  • Mark Barnes
    Mark Barnes Member Posts: 15,432 ✭✭✭

    Jim said:

    Why does this morphology search show no results?

    Not all the morphologies treat the middle deponent verb separately. In this case you'd get results for φοβέω.

    Jim said:

    the NASB95 and ESV interlinears give Louw Nida number of 25.251, φόβος, which is a noun not a verb

    That looks like an error. Presumably it should be 25.252.

    Jim said:

    the morphology tag indicates passive when the verb given in the DBL is middle deponent, and the passive voice doesn't make any sense in the context

    Couldn't being afraid be thought of as passive in the sense that it happens to you? In other words, someone or something else makes you afraid.

    This is my personal Faithlife account. On 1 March 2022, I started working for Faithlife, and have a new 'official' user account. Posts on this account shouldn't be taken as official Faithlife views!

  • Jim
    Jim Member Posts: 731 ✭✭✭

    ** if you prioritize DBL Greek as your #1 Greek lexicon it will also be #1 for Greek Strong's numbers! Advanced prioritization can be used to correct this e.g.

    1. ESL --> restrict to Greek Strong's numbers

    2. DBL Greek   ---> still #1 for Greek lemmas!

    Do the same for Hebrew Strong's and DBL Hebrew.

    Dave, I appreciate your help on this. I had no knowledge of "Advanced Prioritization" which after reading your post I found by right clicking on resources in the library prioritization column. However, from there I don't know what to do. I did set the ESL as you suggested, but don't know how to do your second step.

    Have a great day,
    jmac

  • Jim
    Jim Member Posts: 731 ✭✭✭

    I believe the correct lemma form is φοβέω

    If you right click on the word in NA27, you can select the lemma form (#1 above), then select the morph search on the left side (#2 above). This will open a new search window with a search that will find all instances of the lemma form of the selected word that match the morphology.

    I'm not a Greek scholar, but If I understand correctly from resources in my library, you can search for hortatory subjunctives by altering this search to: lemma:φοβέω@V??S1P
    This will match all uses of the lemma with Subjunctive-First Person-Plural verbs.

    I guess I was misled by the NASB95 and ESV interlinear references which led me to the wrong verb. Thanks for your help. I was surprised to find that Heb 4:1 is the only use of the first  person plural horatory subjunctive of  φοβέω.

    Have a great day,
    jmac

  • Jim
    Jim Member Posts: 731 ✭✭✭

    First of all I was misled by the reference to DBL 5828 which is a middle deponent verb instead of to  φοβέω.

    Secondly, while you are right that one can be made to fear the intent of Hebrews 4:1 is to exhort the readers as a group to fear that any one of the group should think they have missed or failed to enter God's intended rest. The passive doesn't work in this context.

    Have a great day,
    jmac

  • Dave Hooton
    Dave Hooton MVP Posts: 36,133

    Jim said:

    I found by right clicking on resources in the library prioritization column. However, from there I don't know what to do. I did set the ESL as you suggested, but don't know how to do your second step.

    Your list should look like this:

    You drag entries within the list if you want to change their order, or you drag the resource title from Library into the list, and move it around.

    Note that I also prioritized TDNT so that DBL Greek wouldn't be used for TDNT numbers.

    This way, DBL Greek is still #1 for Greek lemmas and Louw-Nida is still  #2.

    For more info see https://wiki.logos.com/Prioritizing#Advanced_Prioritization

    Dave
    ===

    Windows 11 & Android 13

  • Jim
    Jim Member Posts: 731 ✭✭✭

    Dave, thanks for taking the time to explain this to me. I've implemented your instructions and I've saved the link to the Wiki to read.

    Have a great day,
    jmac