| 4. Linguistic Exegesis The sentence begins with the narrative verb eipen {εἶπεν | eî-pen} ‘said,’ with the subject Paulos {Παῦλος | Paû-los} following the postpositive conjunction de {δὲ | dè}, a typical Koine word order that continues the preceding discourse. The next clause summarizes John’s activity with the aorist ebaptisen {ἐβάπτισεν | e-báp-ti-sen} ‘baptized’ and its object baptisma metanoias {βάπτισμα μετανοίας | báp-tis-ma me-ta-noí-as} ‘baptism of repentance,’ where the genitive metanoias specifies the character of the baptism. The dative phrase tō laō {τῷ λαῷ | tô la-ō} ‘to the people’ marks the recipients of John’s ministry. The participle legōn {λέγων | lé-gōn} ‘saying’ is circumstantial and introduces the reported content of John’s preaching. That content is expressed through a hina-clause, hina pisteusōsin {ἵνα πιστεύσωσιν | hína pis-teú-sō-sin} ‘so that they might believe,’ where hina conveys the intended purpose of John’s message rather than mere result. The object of belief is given by the prepositional phrase eis ton erchomenon {εἰς τὸν ἐρχόμενον | eis tón er-khó-me-non} ‘into the coming one,’ further qualified by met’ auton {μετ᾽ αὐτὸν | met’ au-tón} ‘after him,’ indicating temporal succession after John. The appositional clause tout’ estin eis ton Iesoun {τοῦτ᾽ ἔστιν εἰς τὸν Ἰησοῦν | toût’ é-stin eis tón Iē-soûn} ‘that is, into Jesus’ clarifies that the “coming one” is Jesus Himself, functioning as an explanatory equivalence. In translation, the hina-clause is rendered with “that they should believe” in the formal version and “to put their faith” in the dynamic version to reflect purpose and volition, while the explanatory tout’ estin is preserved with “that is” to maintain the explicit identification of Jesus as the focus of faith. |