| 33. Linguistic Exegesis The verse forms a narrative aside explaining Jesus’ prior statement in the preceding verse. The clause touto de elegen {τοῦτο δὲ ἔλεγεν | toû-to dè é-le-gen} ‘but He was saying this’ employs the imperfect tense of the verb, presenting His speech as ongoing or repeated background action. The participle semainon {σημαίνων | sē-maí-nōn} ‘indicating’ is nominative masculine singular and agrees with the implied subject (Jesus), functioning as a circumstantial participle of manner that adds an interpretive nuance: His words were not merely predictive but interpretive, signaling their deeper meaning. The dative phrase poio thanato {ποίῳ θανάτῳ | poí-ō tha-ná-tō} ‘by what kind of death’ uses an interrogative pronoun with a dative of means or respect to specify the manner in which His death will occur. The finite verb emellen {ἤμελλεν | ḗ-mel-len} ‘He was about’ combined with the complementary infinitive apothneskein {ἀποθνῄσκειν | a-po-thnḗ-skein} ‘to die’ expresses imminent, divinely foreseen action that has not yet taken place. In translation, the participial construction is rendered as a finite verb phrase (“indicating” / “to show”) to maintain clarity in English, while the emellen + infinitive structure is captured with “was about to die” / “was going to die,” preserving the sense of impending, certain death and its specific mode. |