Word order

As we learned earlier, Greeks don’t look at the order of words in order to decide which word is the subject or direct object. They look at the case endings.

Why do they use case endings? Why don’t they do it the way we do it? Well, they could ask us the same question. Languages are different in many ways, not just the alphabet and vocabulary.

But here is a really cool thing about Greek. They can place the subject wherever they want (well, almost). In other words, if they want to say, “God sent the apostle,” they could write it any of these ways.

• oJ qeovV sent to;n ajpovstolon.
• to;n ajpovstolon sent oJ qeovV.
• to;n ajpovstolon oJ qeovV sent.

They all say the same basic thing. This is why it is so important to watch for case endings when looking for the subject and direct object of a verb. The order of the Greek words isn't going to help.