Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 69:1 (NA 2018)
Article: Μη Εκλυομενοι In Galatians 6:9
Author: Aaron Michael Jensen

TynBull 69:1 (2018) p. 97

Μη Εκλυομενοι In Galatians 6:9

Aaron Michael Jensen

([email protected])

Summary

The final phrase of Galatians 6:9, μὴ ἐκλυόμενοι, is today almost universally understood as a conditional participle, placing a strong warning on the end of Paul’s encouragement to persist in doing good. This article argues on grammatical, contextual, and historical grounds that the participle would be better understood as having a ‘manner’ shading and as expressing the ceaseless nature of the eschatological harvest as an exhortation to ceaseless service in the present.

1. Introduction

In Galatians 6:9 Paul uses the promise of the eschatological harvest as positive motivation to encourage the Galatians to persist in doing good, writing τὸ δὲ καλὸν ποιοῦντες μὴ ἐγκακῶμεν, καιρῷ γὰρ ἰδίῳ θερίσομεν, ‘In doing good, let us not grow weary, for in its time we will reap.’ Paul then concludes this sentence with the participial phrase μὴ ἐκλυόμενοι. This participial phrase, widely assumed to be a conditional participle, is always translated something along the lines of ‘if we do not give up’1 and is said by commentators to ‘set a condition on reaping’2 and end Paul’s exhortation on a ‘somber note’3 and in a ‘negative way’.4 Virtually all modern English commentators share this

TynBull 69:1 (2018) p. 98

interpretation,5 and almost none of them seem to even consider any other possibilities for this phrase.6

But is a conditional participle the only possibility for understanding this phrase? And is it the best understanding of this phrase? In this article I will lay out the reasons for considering, and also preferring, a different interpretion – an interpretation which takes the circumstantial participial phrase μὴ ἐκλυόμενοι not as a conditional participle that expresses the condition under which the future harvest will take place, but as a participle of manner that expresses the manner in which the future harvest will take place: ‘At the proper time we will harvest u...