Tag Archives: Matthew 5:11

Text in Focus: Matthew 5:11

μακάριοί ἐστε ὅταν ὀνειδίσωσιν ὑμᾶς καὶ διώξωσιν καὶ εἴπωσιν πᾶν πονηρὸν καθ’ ὑμῶν ψευδόμενοι ἕνεκεν ἐμοῦ·

Literal Translation

Blessed are you when they insult you, and persecute you, and say every evil thing against you, falsely, on account of Me.

The Power of Coordinated Subjunctives

This Beatitude from the Sermon on the Mount is a prime example of subjunctive chaining — a series of aorist subjunctive verbs joined by conjunctions, expressing future potential scenarios unified by a single temporal cue: ὅταν (“whenever” or “when”).

This construction emphasizes patterned persecution, unfolding in coordinated steps, all introduced under the umbrella of a conditional time marker.… Learn Koine Greek