Lesson 7.1 · Infinitives and participles
The infinitive
The verb used as a noun: “to loose”, “to believe”.
Sometimes a verb is not about anyone in particular: "to loose", "to
believe", "to be". For that, put an r
where the person letter would go, and keep the tense vowel:
luarō | to loose |
luara | to loose (as one act) |
luirō | to be loosed |
arō | to be |
datō proskunarō
it is necessary to worship (John 4:24)
ouk dunetō polias kruptira
a city cannot be hidden (Matthew 5:14) —
krupt·i·r·a: hide, done to it, "to…", as one act.
r; an infinitive has the r
in the middle and ends in its tense vowel.
luasōr is "loose!"; luarō is "to loose".
The difference is the last letter, which is where your eye already
is.In the Greek — one of its most flexible tools
Greek's infinitives end in -ειν, -σαι, -θῆναι and more (λύειν, λῦσαι, λυθῆναι). Greek uses them far more freely than English does: with the article in front (τὸ λύειν, "the loosing"), after prepositions to mean "while", "after" or "because", and to report what someone said. Where an English Bible has a long "that…" clause, the Greek is often a single infinitive.