| 18. Linguistic Exegesis The verse begins with elegen {Ἔλεγεν | é-le-gen} ‘he was saying’, using the imperfect to indicate an ongoing teaching context. The conjunction oun {οὖν | oûn} ‘therefore’ connects this inquiry to preceding illustrations. Luke frames two parallel interrogatives with the dative pronoun tini {τίνι | tí-ni} ‘to what’, first forming tini homoia estin {τίνι ὁμοία ἐστὶν} ‘what is … like’, and then introducing the future homoiosō {ὁμοιώσω | ho-mo-iṓ-sō} ‘will I liken’ to parallel the first clause. The head noun basileia tou theou {βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ | ba-si-leí-a toû the-oû} ‘the kingdom of God’ is the subject of the first question and the object of the second via autēn {αὐτήν | au-tḗn} ‘it’, tightly binding the two questions. This balanced structure of interrogatives sets the stage for the following parable by creating expectation through rhetorical symmetry. |