Lesson 4.9 · Verbs
The copula
The verb “to be”: pure ending, with no stem in front of it.
"Am, is, are, was, were" is the commonest verb in the Bible, and here it is the simplest word in the language: it has no stem at all. It is pure grammar — just the endings you already know, with nothing in front of them.
atō — "he is". Every form follows the ordinary rules;
there is simply nothing before them:
| is / are | was / were | will be | |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | amō | ame | ami |
| you | asō | ase | asi |
| he / she / it | atō | ate | ati |
| we | anō | ane | ani |
| ye | avō | ave | avi |
| they | alō | ale | ali |
Learn this table and a startling amount of the Bible opens up:
Vis avō tem fōtem tou kosmou.
Ye are the light of the world. (Matthew 5:14)
tos theos agapas atō.
God is love. (1 John 4:8)
In that second one, notice that both theos and
agapas take the doing-it ending. That is normal with
"to be": it links two things rather than acting on one, so both
sides get the same ending.
In the Greek — the most irregular verb of all
εἰμί is irregular in every Greek textbook: εἰμί, εἶ, ἐστίν, ἐσμέν, ἐστέ, εἰσίν in the present, ἤμην, ἦς, ἦν in the past, plus a separate future ἔσομαι. Beginners memorise it as a special case.
Giving it an empty stem is what makes it regular here — the
endings alone are the word. It is also why ate "he
was" looks so bare in John 1:1.
Practice
- What is
alō? - What is
ase? - Read:
tos logos ate pros ton theon.
Show the answers
- "They are."
- "You were" — one person.
- "The Word was with God" (John 1:1).
prosis "toward, with" and takes the done-to ending on what follows.