| 17. Linguistic Exegesis The participial clause eis heauton {εἰς ἑαυτὸν | eís he-autón} ‘into himself’ uses a preposition with a reflexive pronoun to portray inner reflection, and the participle elthōn {ἐλθὼν | el-thṓn} ‘having come’ functions as a temporal clause. The imperfect ephē {ἔφη | é-phē} ‘he said’ transitions into direct speech. The interrogative adjective posoi {Πόσοι | Pó-soi} ‘how many’ highlights the contrast between misthioi {μίσθιοι | mís-thi-oi} ‘hired servants’ and the speaker’s plight, with the genitive phrase tou patros mou {τοῦ πατρός μου | toû pa-trós mou} indicating possession. The verb perisseuontai {περισσεύονται | per-is-seú-on-tai} ‘abound’ takes a genitive of quantity arton {ἄρτων | ár-tōn} ‘of bread’ to express surplus. The contrasting clause egō de limō hōde apollymai {ἐγὼ δὲ λιμῷ ὧδε ἀπόλλυμαι | e-gṓ dè li-môi hô-de a-pól-ly-mai} ‘but I here am perishing with hunger’ uses the emphatic egō, the adverb hōde, and the present middle/passive verb apollymai to convey an ongoing state of ruin. The English rendering turns the participial construction into a temporal clause and preserves the rhetorical question to emphasize the stark contrast within the parable. |