John 7:2 — ExegesisTAB

The clause begins with the verb ēn {ἦν | ên} “was,” followed immediately by the postpositive conjunction de {δὲ | dè}, producing a narrative transition often rendered “now” or “but” to signal a new scene while keeping continuity with the previous context. The adverb engys {ἐγγὺς | eng-gýs} functions predicatively with ēn, indicating temporal nearness: the festival “was near.” The nominative phrase hē heortē tōn Ioudaiōn {ἡ ἑορτὴ τῶν Ἰουδαίων | hē he-or-Tḗ tōn I-ou-daí-ōn} is the grammatical subject, where the genitive tōn Ioudaiōn marks the feast as belonging to, or characterized by, the Jewish people. A second nominative phrase with article, hē skēnopēgia {ἡ σκηνοπηγία | hē skē-no-pē-Gí-a}, stands in apposition to hē heortē, specifying which feast is meant. The double article (hē … hē) is a formal way of identifying “the feast” as “the Feast of Booths,” a major pilgrimage festival. Greek places the verb first for narrative flow, but the English renderings reorder the elements into a more natural subject–verb–complement pattern (“the feast … was near”) while preserving the appositional identification of the festival.