| 18. Linguistic Exegesis The sentence opens with the contrasted subject phrase ta de ekporeuomena {τὰ δὲ ἐκπορευόμενα | tá dè ekporeuómena} ‘but the things that come out’, where the conjunction de marks a contrast with the previous statement about what does not defile. The participle ekporeuomena functions substantivally as the grammatical subject. This is followed by the prepositional phrase ek tou stomatos {ἐκ τοῦ στόματος | ek toû stómatos} ‘out of the mouth’, indicating the immediate source or channel. Another prepositional phrase, ek tes kardias {ἐκ τῆς καρδίας | ek tês kardías} ‘out of the heart’, follows before the finite verb exerchetai {ἐξέρχεται | exérchetai} ‘comes out’, so that the verb ties the “coming out” concept back to the deeper origin in the heart. The word order places the heart phrase before the verb, foregrounding the heart as the real origin. The next clause begins with kakeina {κἀκεῖνα | kakeîna} ‘and those things’, a resumptive demonstrative that points back to “the things” that proceed from the heart, now serving as the neuter plural subject. The verb koinoi {κοινοῖ | koinoî} ‘makes unclean’ appears in the third person singular, a common agreement pattern with a neuter plural subject in Greek, and takes ton anthropon {τὸν ἄνθρωπον | tón ánthrōpon} ‘the person’ as its direct object. In translation, the participial construction is rendered with a finite relative clause to maintain clarity in English, and the heart–mouth sequence is preserved to retain the cause-and-channel relationship: the heart as the inner source and the mouth as the outward expression that leads to ritual and moral defilement. |