Question on MT 24.35 - Middle vs. Active

I'm new to learning Greek. looking for some clarification to see if I'm getting it...

So I am looking at Matthew 24.35
"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words will not pass away."

• The 1st "pass away" is in the middle tense, meaning it is being caused by itself to happen.

• The 2nd "pass away" ("not" = describing what will not happen) is in the active tense, meaning the subject (God's word) is performing the action.

so if i understand this correctly...
then Heaven & earth will pass away by themselves, of their own doing...
but God's word will never pass away because His word sustains itself.

is that correct??

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Kevin Becker

No, since "pass away" comes from a lemma that ends in mai that means the verb is deponent, middle/passive in form but active in meaning.

Brian Davidson

Pastor Bob,

Here is my best attempt to help answer your question. I've had 6 semesters of Greek, and I read it every day but of course I am still an amateur.

It is not correct to say that if a verb is in the middle voice then the action is being caused by the subject itself. The middle voice is not equal to a a verb being reflexive. Just exactly how the middle voice functions is a highly debated subject. Here is a paragraph from Stanley Porters, Idioms of the Greek NT:

Grammarians are undecided how exactly to characterize the Greek middle voice, but most are agreed that a reflexive middle sense (‘he washed himself’), in which the agent (subject) and recipient (object) of the action are the same, is not the predominant one in the Hellenistic period. Moulton (perhaps a bit extremely), after surveying the evidence in the NT, believes that the middle voice is ‘quite inaccurately’ described as reflexive. Of all the possible examples, he concedes only Mt. 27.5 (ἀπήγξατο), but even here not without question, suggesting the translation ‘choke’ rather than the reflexive ‘hang oneself’. Moulton points out the humor in taking the middle reflexively in 2 Pet. 2.22: ὗς λουσαμένη (a pig washes itself [?]). This analysis weakens interpretations which rely heavily on the reflexive sense, although it certainly does not demonstrate that such a sense is impossible.

Stanley E. Porter, Idioms of the Greek New Testament (Sheffield: JSOT, 1999), 67.

My Greek professor, Jonathan Pennington, has also written a couple important articles on the middle voice. One is available in Trinity Journal vol. 24, 1 pgs. 54-76. If you have the theological journals library you can access this resource as well. During the time period the NT documents were written the middle voice was gradually fading away. Eventually there would only be active and passive forms. This is one thing (among many) that makes a consensus regarding the distinctive function of the middle so difficult. Voice is messy.

The middle voice essentially communicates more "subject affectedness." Many think the type of action a verb denotes has a lot to do with why the middle voice was used. If a man "throws" a ball he is not directly affected by the action. The subject of "pass away" is much more affected by the action than one who throws something.

Regarding Matthew 24:35: This particular verb παρερχομαι only appears in the active voice in the NT when it is in the aorist and perfect tenses. This verb (like many) changes its stem in certain tenses: παρερχομαι (present) becomes παρηλθον (aorist). This response is already too long so I won't go into reasons why verbs change stems in different tense-forms. Suffice it to say it doesn't necessarily boil down to the fact that one is transitive and one is reflexive.

So I would not make the argument that because παρερχομαι is in the middle voice, therefore it means that the heavens and earth will pass away by their own doing. In English translation the middle voice is sometimes indistinguishable from the passive. I would translate this verse: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away."

I really would encourage you to read Stanley Porter's chapter on voice in Idioms and Dr. Pennington's article mentioned above. They were very helpful to me. I think I need to read them again as well. It takes time for this kind of stuff to sink in. So, speaking to you and myself, don't give up!

Hope this helps.

Mike Aubrey

Ahh...you've found a place where language is messy.

First, just so you know, we're talking about active and middle voice rather than tense.

http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsTense.htm

The best current discussion of voice in Greek can be found here.

http://artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/GrkVc.html

Fundamentally, the most important thing to remember are the words of the great linguist Edward Sapir:

The fact of grammar, a universal trait of language, is simply a generalized expression of the feeling that analogous concepts and relations are most conveniently symbolized in analogous forms. Were a language ever completely “grammatical,” it would be a perfect engine of conceptual expression. Unfortunately, or luckily, no language is tyrannically consistent. All grammars leak.

Tyler Wittman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/148260#Comment_148260

Brian Davidson, nice penguins.

[H]

William

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/148252#Comment_148252

No, since "pass away" comes from a lemma that ends in mai that means the verb is deponent, middle/passive in form but active in meaning.

I want to ask here.....Why would he not be correct in saying that Heaven and Earth are the ones passing away because it is active in meaning and active indicates that the subject is in action. Just like God's Word will not pass away "again active" so God's word is subject to this pass away?

Kevin Becker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/148484#Comment_148484

No, since "pass away" comes from a lemma that ends in mai that means the verb is deponent, middle/passive in form but active in meaning.

I want to ask here.....Why would he not be correct in saying that Heaven and Earth are the ones passing away because it is active in meaning and active indicates that the subject is in action. Just like God's Word will not pass away "again active" so God's word is subject to this pass away?

Heaven and Earth will pass away, but they will not cause themselves to pass away as the OP was inferring from the Middle Voice parsing of the word in question.

Mike Aubrey

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/148484#Comment_148484

I want to ask here.....Why would he not be correct in saying that Heaven and Earth are the ones passing away because it is active in meaning and active indicates that the subject is in action. Just like God's Word will not pass away "again active" so God's word is subject to this pass away?

You've hit upon the essential question.

Subjects of active verbs can be Agents, Instruments, Experiencers, Recipients, etc.,

Subjects of middle/passive verbs can be Experiencers, Recipients, etc., but they can never be only Agents.

The key is that while semantically a Subject of an Active verb doesn't necessarily need to be an Actor/Agent, the Subject of a Middle/Passive verb cannot be an Agent/Actor--unless in being an Agent, the Subject is acting on itself -- i.e. a sort of reflexive construction: "John drove himself to work."

This is a distinction that holds across the board -- which is why the category of "Deponent" which Kevin brought up is actually irrelevant to Greek grammar. It was imported from Latin grammar in the least first millennium AD and was never actually needed.