Lesson 6.3 · Mood
The imperative
Commands and requests.
A command puts an r at the very end
of the word — after the tense vowel, as the final letter:
Kurior, sōzasar.
"Lord, save!" (Matthew 8:25)
You have seen that final -r before, on
Kurior — the ending for speaking to someone
(Lesson 2.7). It is the same letter for the same reason: the speaker
is addressing you. On a noun it calls a person; on a verb it calls
for an action.
Commands to "him" and "them", too
English can only command "you". This language can command any person, and English has to fall back on "let":
hagiazitar tem onomem su
let your name be made holy (Matthew 6:9) —
hagiaz·i·t·a·r: made holy, done to it, it, as one
act, command.
proseuchevōr vis
pray, ye (Matthew 6:9) — v is "ye", so
it is addressed to a group.
-r anywhere in a sentence means someone
is being addressed — someone is being addressed — a person, or an action being
asked for.In the Greek — present versus aorist commands
The tense on a command is aspect, not time (Lesson 4.6), and the
difference can matter. A present imperative asks for ongoing or
habitual behaviour — "keep on asking"; an aorist imperative asks
for the act itself — "ask". Both appear constantly in the New
Testament, and both are visible here in the vowel before the
r.
Greek marks its imperative with endings like -ε, -έτω, -ετε,
-έτωσαν, which overlap confusingly with ordinary statements:
λύετε is "ye loose" or "loose!" depending on context. Here the
r settles it.