| 29. Linguistic Exegesis The verse opens with genos {γένος | gé-nos} ‘offspring’ placed first for emphasis, followed by the participle hyparchontes {ὑπάρχοντες | hy-pár-khon-tes} ‘being’ and the genitive tou theou {τοῦ θεοῦ | toû the-oû} ‘of God’, forming a circumstantial participial phrase that grounds the argument. The inferential conjunction oun {οὖν | oun} connects this statement to the preceding discourse. The main verbal idea is the negated obligation ouk opheilomen nomizein {οὐκ ὀφείλομεν νομίζειν | ouk o-pheí-lo-men no-mí-zein} ‘we ought not to think’, where the finite verb opheilomen governs the complementary infinitive nomizein. A coordinated series of datives—chrysō ē argyrō ē lithō charagmati {χρυσῷ ἢ ἀργύρῳ ἢ λίθῳ χαράγματι | khry-sō ē ar-gý-rō lí-thō kha-rág-ma-ti}—lists materials and the fashioned object, representing typical idol forms. The genitive chain technēs kai enthymēseōs anthrōpou {τέχνης καὶ ἐνθυμήσεως ἀνθρώπου | tékh-nēs kai en-thy-mḗ-se-ōs an-thrō-pou} functions as a subjective genitive, indicating that the image originates from human craft and internal conception. The infinitival clause to theion einai homoion {τὸ θεῖον εἶναι ὅμοιον | to theî-on eî-nai hó-moi-on} serves as the object of nomizein: the articular adjective to theion ‘the divine being’ is linked by einai ‘to be’ to the predicate adjective homoion ‘similar’, which appears in the accusative as the complement in the accusative-and-infinitive construction. English renders this with a finite clause “that the divine is like …” and standard subject–verb–object order, preserving the logical sequence from believers’ identity as God’s offspring to the argument against representing the transcendent Deity with human-made idols. |