καὶ

Alphabet Analysis

The word

1. word🔊 καὶ

   KAI

   and
2. sentence🔊 Λέγων Πορεύθητι πρὸς τὸν λαὸν τοῦτον καὶ εἰπὸν Ἀκοῇ ἀκούσετε καὶ οὐ μὴ συνῆτε καὶ βλέποντες βλέψετε καὶ οὐ μὴ ἴδητε.

   LE-gōn po-REU-thē-ti pros ton la-ON TOU-ton KAI ei-PON a-ko-Ê a-KOU-se-te KAI ou mē sy-NÊ-te KAI BLE-pon-tes BLEP-se-te KAI ou mē I-dē-te

   saying go to the people this and say by hearing you will hear and not not you will understand and seeing you will see and not not you may perceive

Exegesis

The first clause, akoe akousete kai ou me synete {Ἀκοῇ ἀκούσετε καὶ οὐ μὴ συνῆτε | A-ko-ḗ a-koú-se-te kaí ou mḕ sy-nê-te}, employs a cognate construction (noun akoe with verb akousete) to intensify the idea of continual hearing, followed by the emphatic negation ou me plus the aorist subjunctive synete, expressing a certain failure to arrive at understanding.

The second clause, blepontes blepsete kai ou me idete {βλέποντες βλέψετε καὶ οὐ μὴ ἴδητε | blé-pon-tes blép-se-te kaí ou mḕ í-dē-te}, mirrors the first with a participle–finite-verb pair to underscore sustained seeing, again concluded with ou me and an aorist subjunctive to signal a decisive lack of true perception. This parallelism and the repetition of hearing/seeing language create a strong rhetorical portrayal of hardened response, which the translations render with iterative expressions (“you will certainly hear,” “you will look and look”) and intensified negatives (“by no means,” “never”) to reflect the force of the Greek emphatic negation.