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So I mean, I've only been reading the NT regularly for about 2 years; and in any case the source text itself is 2000 years old, and the quote itself will almost certainly have been a translation from a very different language (Aramaic into Greek). So it's certainly not impossible that those words are just the way you say that in that language. That said: - I have learned quite a number of languages at various levels, including French, Turkish, Mandarin, Cantonese, Koine Greek, German, and Japanese. I can have conversations in French and Mandarin, and I'm reading mid-length paragraphs in Koine Greek. So I've been exposed to a fair range of non-English idioms (as in definition 1, "natural mode of expression"). - If there were other examples of this particular idiom in the NT, the study method I use [1] is highly likely to have shown them to me; but I haven't seen other examples of it. One thing about low-key idioms is that they're short and easy to say; e.g., the idiomatic way to say "quickly" in Mandarin is 马上, which literally means "on a horse". Nobody thinks about horses when they say that; but it's fast enough to go by quickly. When I read the words in Greek out loud, they're not quick -- it's long, and the rhythm of the words slow the phrase down. Looking at the grammar and the context, in my judgement, I think it very unlikely to be simply be an idiomatic way to say, "Listen carefully"; I go into more detail in a sibling comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43837037 But hey, I could be wrong. :-) [1] "Guided immersion" https://www.laleolanguage.com |