| 36. Linguistic Exegesis The vocative noun aphron {ἄφρων | áph-rōn} begins the sentence as a sharp rebuke, intensified by the emphatic pronoun su {σὺ | sý}. The relative pronoun ho {ὃ | hó} introduces “what you sow,” with speireis {σπείρεις | speí-reis} as its verb and ou {οὐ | ou} negating zoopoieitai {ζῳοποιεῖται | zō-ō-poi-eî-tai}, “is made alive,” to assert the lack of life in the seed as it stands. The conditional conjunction ean {ἐὰν | e-án} with me {μὴ | mḕ} and the aorist subjunctive apothane {ἀποθάνῃ | a-po-thánē} in the protasis require that death must occur before life. This structure moves from the rebuke to the illustrative principle that life follows death. Both English reconstructions preserve the sequence by maintaining the vocative, treating the relative clause as the subject, and rendering the indispensable “unless” clause for the main assertion. |