| 35. Linguistic Exegesis The sentence begins with hopos {ὅπως | hó-pōs} ‘so that’, introducing a purpose clause that depends on the preceding context of announced judgment. The verb elthē {ἔλθῃ | él-thē} ‘may come’ is in the aorist subjunctive, giving the clause a telic sense: the piling up of guilt has the result or purpose that judgment will fall. The prepositional phrase eph humas {ἐφ’ ὑμᾶς | eph hy-mâs} ‘upon you’ places the leaders as the direct recipients of this outcome. The nominal group pan haima dikaion ekchynnomenon {πᾶν αἷμα δίκαιον ἐκχυννόμενον | pân haî-ma dík-ai-on ek-chyn-NÓ-me-non} features the adjective pan in first position for totality, followed by the head noun haima and the qualifying adjective dikaion, with the participle ekchynnomenon adding the idea of blood continually or characteristically ‘being poured out’ on the earth. The genitive phrase epi tēs gēs {ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς | e-pí tēs gēs} specifies the sphere where this shedding occurs.
The range apo tou haimatos Habel tou dikaiou heōs tou haimatos Zachariou huiou Barachiou {ἀπὸ τοῦ αἵματος Ἅβελ τοῦ δικαίου ἕως τοῦ αἵματος Ζαχαρίου υἱοῦ Βαραχίου | a-pó tou haí-ma-tos Há-bel tou di-kaí-ou hé-ōs tou haí-ma-tos Za-kha-rí-ou hy-oo Ba-ra-khí-ou} is introduced with apo…heōs as a temporal-historical merism, spanning from Abel in Genesis to Zechariah in the later historical books, thereby encompassing the full story of the righteous sufferers within Israel’s Scriptures. The repeated genitive haimatos plus the names emphasizes not only the individuals but the ongoing pattern of murderous hostility toward the righteous.
The relative clause hon ephoneusate metaxu tou naou kai tou thysiastēriou {ὃν ἐφονεύσατε μεταξὺ τοῦ ναοῦ καὶ τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου | hon e-fo-neú-sa-te me-ta-xý tou na-oo kaí tou thu-si-as-tē-rí-ou} further defines Zechariah as the one ‘whom you murdered’, with the second person plural verb directly implicating the current generation in continuity with their forebears. The prepositional expression metaxu tou naou kai tou thysiastēriou ‘between the temple and the altar’ pinpoints a sacred interior location, creating a stark contrast between the holiness of the setting and the violence committed there. In translation, genitive chains are rendered with prepositional and possessive constructions (“from the blood of… to the blood of…”), and the long Greek sentence is preserved as a single, flowing unit in English while slightly restructuring word order to fit natural English syntax. |