Lesson 6.4 · Mood
The optative
Wishes and remote possibilities — rare, but worth recognising.
The last mood, and the rarest — fewer than seventy times in the
whole New Testament. oi before the tense
vowel expresses a wish or a remote possibility: "may it be so",
"would that it were":
mē ginetoia.
"May it never be!" (Romans 6:2)
Paul's favourite exclamation, and the most common place you will
meet this mood. Take it apart:
gin·e·t·oi·a — become, to itself, it, wish, as one act.
With mē "not" in front, it is a firm "certainly
not!"
oi
and read it as "may…"; you will not need to produce it.In the Greek — a mood on its way out
The optative was in decline by New Testament times — classical
Greek used it far more — and it survives mainly in fixed phrases
like μὴ γένοιτο and in polite wishes ("may the Lord grant…").
Greek marks it with -οι- or -αι- before the ending, which is where
the oi here comes from.