| 19. Linguistic Exegesis The verse consists of two coordinated commands, each centered on a second person verb directed to the hearer. The initial imperative tima {Τίμα | Tíma} ‘honor’ governs two coordinated direct objects, ton patera {τὸν πατέρα | tón patéra} and ten metera {τὴν μητέρα | tēn mētéra}, with the repeated articles and the conjunction kai {καὶ | kaí} creating a balanced pair that equally emphasizes both parents. The second clause introduces a future indicative agapeseis {Ἀγαπήσεις | Agapḗseis} ‘you will love’ that functions as a future of command, a common idiom in biblical Greek for legal or covenantal injunctions. This verb takes as its object ton plesion sou {τὸν πλησίον σου | tón plēsíon sou}, where the possessive pronoun sou {σου | sou} individualizes the obligation for each listener. The comparative particle hos {ὡς | hōs} introduces the standard of comparison, seauton {σεαυτόν | seautón} ‘yourself’, making self-regard the measure for neighbor-love. Syntactically, the two clauses are coordinated by kai {καὶ | kaí}, placing honoring parents and loving the neighbor on the same ethical level. In translation, the imperative and future-of-command constructions are both rendered as direct commands in English to reflect their directive force while maintaining the parallelism between the two halves of the verse. |