Lesson 8.1 · The rest of the sentence
Prepositions
In, into, from, with — and the ending the noun after them takes.
A small set of words sits in front of a noun and says where, when or how: in, into, from, with. They never change their spelling — learn each one once and you have it for good.
| Word | Means | Word | Means | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
en | in, on, among | dia | through, because of | |
eis | into, to | meta | with, after | |
ek | out of | peri | about, concerning | |
apo | from, away from | epi | on, at | |
pros | toward, with | hupo | under, by | |
huper | for, on behalf of | sun | together with |
en archa … pros ton theon
in the beginning … with God (John 1:1)
They come with a job ending attached
Each of these words expects the noun after it to be in a particular
form, and that is good news: you do not have to remember which,
because the noun tells you. en takes the "to/for/in"
form (en archa, en pneume);
eis and pros take the done-to form
(eis auton, pros ton theon);
apo and ek take the "of" form
(apo autou).
In the Greek — a preposition can take three cases
These are Greek's own prepositions, unchanged. In Greek several of them govern more than one case, and the case changes the meaning: μετά with the genitive is "with", with the accusative "after"; διά with the genitive is "through", with the accusative "because of". The noun's ending tells you which is meant, here as there — which is why the ending on the noun is worth reading even when the preposition looks familiar.
Greek also drops the final vowel of some prepositions before a vowel (ἀπ' αὐτοῦ for ἀπὸ αὐτοῦ). Biblang never does; the word is always spelled in full.