| 50. Linguistic Exegesis The verse begins with kai {καὶ | kaí} as a narrative connector, tightly linking this action to the preceding events of Jesus’ arrest. The aorist participle aphentes {ἀφέντες | aphéntes} precedes its object auton {αὐτόν | autón}, forming a circumstantial participial construction that is most naturally taken as temporal and attendant: “after leaving Him” or “when they left Him.” The direct object auton refers back to Jesus as the one abandoned. The finite verb ephygon {ἔφυγον | éphugon} is an aorist indicative, conveying a sudden, decisive act of flight. The subject pantes {πάντες | pántes} appears at the end of the clause, a common Greek pattern that places the totality of the group in a climactic position, stressing that not one remained. In English, the participial construction is rendered as a temporal clause in the formal reconstruction (“after leaving Him”) to preserve the sequence of abandonment followed by flight, while the dynamic reconstruction condenses this into “abandoned Him and ran away” to foreground the relational rupture and the collective panic. |