| 11. Linguistic Exegesis The verse opens with the coordinating conjunction kai {καὶ | kaì} linking this saying to the preceding context. The historical present legei {λέγει | lé-gei} ‘he says’ adds vividness, with the dative plural autois {αὐτοῖς | au-toîs} ‘to them’ marking the audience of His address. The core teaching is framed as a conditional relative clause introduced by hos an {ὅς ἂν | hòs àn} ‘whoever would’, which functions generically and sets up a protasis. This protasis contains two aorist active subjunctives, apolysē {ἀπολύσῃ | a-po-lús-sē} ‘might divorce’ and gamēsē {γαμήσῃ | ga-mḗ-sē} ‘might marry’, depicting decisive, complete actions. The direct object of the first verb is the noun phrase tēn gynaika autou {τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ | tḕn gynaî-ka au-toû} ‘his wife’, with the article plus noun followed by the possessive genitive pronoun indicating the established marital bond. The coordinating conjunction kai {καὶ | kaì} tightly links divorce and remarriage as a single scenario, while allēn {ἄλλην | állēn} ‘another’ specifies a different woman as the object of the second verb. The apodosis is expressed by the present middle indicative moichatai {μοιχᾶται | moi-khâ-tai} ‘commits adultery’, whose present aspect portrays an ongoing state of being an adulterer as a result of the described actions. The prepositional phrase ep autēn {ἐπʼ αὐτήν | ep au-tḗn} ‘against her’ uses the preposition with the accusative to highlight the direction of the wrong done to the first wife. The English renderings preserve the generic “whoever” construction in the formal version, while the dynamic version uses an explicit “if a man” clause to convey the same conditional force and maintain the causal flow from actions (divorce and remarriage) to result (adultery against the first wife). |