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Lesson 2.6 · Nouns

The dative

The case that says “to”, “for” and “with”.

This job adds no letter at all. The word simply stops after its gender vowel. It means to, for, with, by or in — whichever fits.

theGod omasculine  nothing added: to, for, with

So the four masculine forms you now know run theos · theon · theou · theo. That last one, ending bare in its gender vowel, is this lesson's form.

WordMeans
logoto / for / with a word
agapato / for / with love
biblieto / for / with a book

In real verses

It is the form that follows en "in", and the form for the person something is said or given to:

en pneume kai alētheia
in spirit and truth (John 4:24)

legata auto
he said to him (John 20:28)

It is doing several English prepositions' work at once, which is why the reader glosses it as "to, for". If "to" doesn't fit a phrase, try "with" or "in" before looking anything up.
In the Greek — three old cases in one

Greek's dative absorbed what were once three separate cases — the dative proper ("to/for"), the instrumental ("with, by means of") and the locative ("in, at"). That is why one Greek ending covers so much ground, and Biblang inherits exactly that range rather than splitting it up.

Greek spells it -ῳ, -ῃ, -ι and more, often with a tiny iota written underneath the vowel (the iota subscript: τῷ λόγῳ). That mark is easy to miss on the page and is not written here; the bare gender vowel does the job instead.

Practice

What job is each word doing?

  1. theo
  2. theou
  3. agapa
Show the answers
  1. "To / for God" — nothing after the gender vowel o.
  2. "Of God" — the -u from the last lesson.
  3. "To / for / with love" — feminine a, then nothing. (Careful: agapas with the -s would be love doing something.)
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