Matthew 7:7 ASK!

As most of you know, I am a self-taught student of NT Greek, or I should say "self-teaching", since I am still learning, and always will be learning.

Anyhoo, I learned something today that I thought was very interesting and I wanted to share it.

This morning, my translation exercise was Matthew 7:7.  You are all quite familiar with the English translation of that verse:  "Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you."

I was particularly interested in the word "ask" because I knew that there were several different Greek words for the word "ask", and I wanted to know if there were any significant differences in them, and how it would enlighten me in a new way whenever I came across this word in the future.

Indeed there is a significant difference!

As I said, there are several different Greek words for the word "ask", but I will only focus on two of them, since they are the ones that should be distinguished for deeper meaning.

1. The first one is the one you see here - the first word in the verse, pronounced "hye-TAY-te".

It is in the imperative mood (a command).  The lexical form is "hye-TE-oh".

It suggests a request or a petition that is made from a person of less equality or status than the person to whom the petition is made.  Like a child to a parent, or a subject to a king, or in this case - man to God.

Are you with me so far?

2. The other Greek word to compare it with is "air-o-TA-o", which also means to ask or request, but it suggests that the petitioner is on equal footing or familiarity with the person of whom he requests, like a king to another king, or sibling to sibling.

So, if I am going to request something from a friend, I would use #2.

If I'm going to ask something from any authority figure, I would use #1

Interestingly, in Luke 7:36, one of the Pharisees "asked" Jesus to eat with him. The word that Luke used in that narrative is #2, which suggests that the Pharisee considered himself to be equal with Christ.  Perhaps at that time, the Pharisee didn't understand who Jesus was? Or perhaps he thought Jesus was inferior to him? In vs 39, he refers to Jesus as a prophet, so maybe he was just arrogant?  What do you think? Certainly, by using this word, the Pharisee didn't consider Jesus to be above him in any way.

(The way I see it, #1 may suggest an attitude of respect and humility.)

Okay, here's the really interesting part that I'm still trying to wrap my brain around: Jesus never used #1 when making requests to the Father. The reason is obvious - He was EQUAL to God.  

It would very interesting to point this out to the Jehovah's Witnesses and see what they would have to say about that!

It's amazing how something so trivial can have so much meaning!

And this is just one teeny example of why I love learning Greek!

So there's your little Greek trivia for today.

In other news:

I got my veggie seeds already!

I will be planting pumpkins, winter squash, zucchini, tomatoes, snap beans, beets, broccoli, brussel sprouts, carrots, cucumbers, salad mix, peas, and sunflowers.

I would like to start planting some of them NOW, especially the squash and pumpkins, but we are leaving for Fairbanks in a couple days, so it will have to be my #1 priority when I get back home.

Other news:

Bossy took Kiska's place as far as helping me with my quilting.

It's kinda hard to sew it with a cat sitting on top of it.

She likes cushy things, I guess.

That's all for now.  Hopefully, I will have some news from Fairbanks when I get back.