Psalm 33:6 LXX dative case

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Edward Hibbard
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Joined: April 22nd, 2012, 3:05 pm

Psalm 33:6 LXX dative case

Post by Edward Hibbard »

Hello.

At Psalm 33:6 LXX:

GREEK TEXT: "...tO logO tou kuriou oi ouranoi estereOthEsan kai tO pneumati tou
stomatos autou pasa E dunamis autOn..."

"...( By ) the word of the Lord the heavens were solidified, and ( by ) the
breath of his mouth all their force..." - (The Apostles Bible LXX-English)

The words Gk., ( to logo ) and Gk., ( to pneumati ) are in the dative case in
the Greek.

But I only know the meaning of the Dative Case as being generally the reciever
of the action.

Can somone who knows a little bit more about the Dative Case here and how it
works, explain please how it can be translated "...BY..." instead of "...TO..."?

Thank you.
Jonathan Robie
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Location: Durham, NC
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Re: Psalm 33:6 LXX dative case

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Edward Hibbard wrote:The words Gk., ( to logo ) and Gk., ( to pneumati ) are in the dative case in
the Greek.

But I only know the meaning of the Dative Case as being generally the reciever
of the action.

Can somone who knows a little bit more about the Dative Case here and how it
works, explain please how it can be translated "...BY..." instead of "...TO..."?
Hi Edward,

What Greek grammar are you learning from? This is a common use of the dative, called the "dative of means".

See Funk 892.3:
The dative of means is closely related to the instrumental dative:
(51) ὥστε καὶ Βαρναβᾶς συναττήχθη ἀυτῶν τῇ ὑποκρίσει Gal 2:13
So that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Louis L Sorenson
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Location: Burnsville, MN, USA
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Re: Psalm 33:6 LXX dative case

Post by Louis L Sorenson »

The dative case is only called dative in the 5 case system of Koine/Attic Greek. Greek, coming from Indo-European originally had 8 cases. Older grammars such as Robertson and earlier always talked about the 8 cases of Greek (Vocative, Nominative, Genitive, Ablative, Dative, Instrumental, Locative, and Accusative).

Combined under the dative case (because the form is the same in Koine/Attic) are three cases: D = Dative (the true dative, indicating to or for whom), I = Instrumental (indicates that something was done by some sort of intermediate agency 'with a thing, by a thing") and L = Locative (in a place, at a place, at a specific time, etc.). The single dative case is used in Koine to represent these three different functions. So in addition to the use with prepositions, the dative (catch-all Koine term) includes a wide range of functions. You can usually peg the meaning of a dative on one of those three IE base meanings.

Note: the dative is missing from modern Greek
Shirley Rollinson
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Location: New Mexico
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Re: Psalm 33:6 LXX dative case

Post by Shirley Rollinson »

Edward Hibbard wrote:Hello.

At Psalm 33:6 LXX:

GREEK TEXT: "...tO logO tou kuriou oi ouranoi estereOthEsan kai tO pneumati tou
stomatos autou pasa E dunamis autOn..."

"...( By ) the word of the Lord the heavens were solidified, and ( by ) the
breath of his mouth all their force..." - (The Apostles Bible LXX-English)

The words Gk., ( to logo ) and Gk., ( to pneumati ) are in the dative case in
the Greek.

But I only know the meaning of the Dative Case as being generally the reciever
of the action.

Can somone who knows a little bit more about the Dative Case here and how it
works, explain please how it can be translated "...BY..." instead of "...TO..."?

Thank you.
The Dative in Greek can be translated into English as any of the follwoing :
to, for, by, with, from, in
you get to choose whichever fits best with the context :-)
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