| 41. Linguistic Exegesis The verse begins with kai {καὶ | kaí}, which links this action to the preceding narrative and signals a continuation of events. The demonstrative tauta {ταῦτα | taû-ta} refers back to the content of the prior speech, functioning as the object within the participial clause. The aorist participle eipōn {εἰπὼν | ei-pṓn} introduces a circumstantial clause that is temporally prior to the main verb apelysen {ἀπέλυσεν | a-pé-lu-sen} ‘he dismissed’, yielding the sense “after he had said.” This common narrative pattern of participle followed by aorist indicative compresses two sequential actions into a concise structure that English renders with a temporal clause. The direct object phrase tēn ekklēsian {τὴν ἐκκλησίαν | tḕn ek-klē-sí-an} marks the assembled group as the entity being dismissed; the accusative case signals it as the object of the finite verb. In this context, ekklēsia carries a civic-assembly nuance rather than a specifically ecclesial one, so the translation uses “assembly” and “gathering” while preserving the idea of an orderly, possibly official, dismissal conveyed by the verb apelysen. |