Mood: Fact, Possibility, Command

Every finite Greek verb has a mood, and there are four: indicative, subjunctive, imperative and optative. Infinitives and participles are sometimes listed as moods too, and the codes in your tools put them in the mood slot, but they are verbals, not moods in the full sense, and the next two lessons take them on their own. This lesson is about the four.

The commonest description is that the indicative is the mood of fact, the subjunctive the mood of possibility, the imperative the mood of command and the optative the mood of wish. That is a useful first map, and it will mislead you if you take it literally. Mood is not a report on reality. It is the way the speaker presents an action. The indicative presents an action as real, whether or not it is. The chief priests in Matthew 28:13 instruct the soldiers what to say, 'His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep', and the verb ἔκλεψαν (eklepsan, they stole) is an aorist active indicative. It is a lie, in the indicative, because the soldiers are to present it as fact. Most questions are in the indicative, so are most negations, so are most promises and most statements about the future.

So the indicative is the mood of assertion, and the other three are moods that step back from bare assertion in different directions. The subjunctive presents an action as proposed, intended, possible or expected. The imperative presents it as willed, by the speaker, of the hearer. The optative, which is rare, presents it as wished for or as remotely possible. Grammarians sometimes describe the four as a scale running from what is presented as real to what is presented as merely conceivable. The picture is helpful as long as you remember that it measures how the speaker frames the action, not how likely the action is.

Now the anchor in the SBL Greek New Testament (SBLGNT). Romans 6:1 opens Τί οὖν ἐροῦμεν; (ti oun eroumen, what then shall we say?), with ἐροῦμεν (eroumen, we shall say), a future active indicative, first person plural. Then comes the question proper: ἐπιμένωμεν τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ, ἵνα ἡ χάρις πλεονάσῃ; (epimenōmen tē hamartia, hina hē charis pleonasē, are we to continue in sin, so that grace may increase?). ἐπιμένωμεν (epimenōmen, are we to continue) is a present active subjunctive, first person plural, and πλεονάσῃ (pleonasē, it may increase) is an aorist active subjunctive, third person singular, after ἵνα (hina, so that). Verse 2 answers μὴ γένοιτο (mē genoito, may it not be), with γένοιτο an aorist middle optative, third person singular, of γίνομαι (ginomai, I become, I come to be). And then the reason: οἵτινες ἀπεθάνομεν τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ, πῶς ἔτι ζήσομεν ἐν αὐτῇ; (hoitines apethanomen tē hamartia, pōs eti zēsomen en autē, we who died to sin, how shall we still live in it?), with ἀπεθάνομεν (apethanomen, we died) an aorist active indicative and ζήσομεν (zēsomen, we shall live) a future active indicative.

Read the moods in order and you can hear the argument before you know a single word of it. A proposal, framed as a real question. A refusal, framed as a wish that the thing should never come to be. A fact, framed as something that happened. Paul does not answer the question by proving it wrong in the subjunctive. He sets against it an indicative: something is true of you that makes the proposal absurd.

Because the subjunctive is often translated with English helper words like may, might or should, students easily conclude that it expresses uncertainty. Sometimes it does. Very often it does not, and a few well-known verses will cure the habit.

John 3:16 in the SBLGNT ends ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς αὐτὸν μὴ ἀπόληται ἀλλὰ ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον (hina pas ho pisteuōn eis auton mē apolētai alla echē zōēn aiōnion, so that everyone who believes in him should not perish but have eternal life). ἀπόληται (apolētai, he may perish) is an aorist middle subjunctive and ἔχῃ (echē, he may have) a present active subjunctive. They are subjunctive because ἵνα, when it expresses purpose, takes the subjunctive. The grammar is stating God's purpose in giving the Son, not hedging about whether it will succeed, and the BSB rightly says 'shall not perish but have eternal life'.

John 10:28 goes further: καὶ οὐ μὴ ἀπόλωνται εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα (kai ou mē apolōntai eis ton aiōna), which the BSB gives as 'and they will never perish'. The construction οὐ μή with an aorist subjunctive is the strongest way Greek has of denying something about the future. Two negatives, and a subjunctive, and the meaning is not perhaps but certainly not, never. If the subjunctive meant doubt, this would be the most doubtful sentence in John; in fact it is among the most emphatic.

The subjunctive has a handful of main uses worth knowing by sight, because your tools will label the form and leave the use to you. Purpose after ἵνα, as in John 3:16. The deliberative question, where a speaker asks what to do: Romans 6:1 is one, and so is Mark 6:24, where the girl asks her mother Τί αἰτήσωμαι; (ti aitēsōmai, what should I ask for?). The hortatory subjunctive, a first person plural appeal: Hebrews 4:16 begins προσερχώμεθα οὖν (proserchōmetha oun), 'Let us then approach'. Emphatic denial with οὐ μή, as in John 10:28. Prohibition, with μή and the aorist subjunctive, which lesson 5 takes up. And the condition with ἐάν (ean, if), as in 1 John 1:9, ἐὰν ὁμολογῶμεν τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν (ean homologōmen tas hamartias hēmōn, if we confess our sins), which Module 6 treats with the other kinds of if sentence.

So when a tool tells you a verb is subjunctive, the next question is not how uncertain is it, but what is the subjunctive doing here? Look at the word in front of it: ἵνα, ἐάν, οὐ μή, μή, or a question word. Look at the person: a first person plural may be an appeal. Then let the English follow the use, and do not let a preacher's may or might turn God's stated purpose into a wish.

The difference between the indicative and the subjunctive in many verbs is a single vowel: an omicron or epsilon in the indicative becomes an omega or eta in the subjunctive. By the early centuries of the church, ordinary pronunciation had made omicron and omega sound alike. A scribe copying by ear, or a reader dictating to a scribe, could produce either. That is why some of the most discussed variants in the New Testament are differences of mood, and Romans has two of them within a few verses of the anchor.

Romans 5:1 in the SBLGNT reads Δικαιωθέντες οὖν ἐκ πίστεως εἰρήνην ἔχομεν πρὸς τὸν θεὸν (dikaiōthentes oun ek pisteōs eirēnēn echomen pros ton theon), with ἔχομεν (echomen, we have), a present active indicative. The BSB follows: 'we have peace with God'. But many manuscripts, including the oldest, read ἔχωμεν (echōmen), a present active subjunctive: let us have peace with God, or let us enjoy the peace we have. The editors of the major printed texts do not agree. The SBLGNT and the Nestle-Aland 28th edition print the indicative. The Tyndale House Greek New Testament (2017), and the nineteenth-century editions of Westcott and Hort and of Tregelles, print the subjunctive. If the tool you use shows textual notes, look for one at this word; if it does not, a study Bible's footnote will often mention it.

The case for the subjunctive is the case from manuscripts, and it is strong. The subjunctive is the reading of the first hand of Codex Sinaiticus and of Codex Vaticanus, of Codex Alexandrinus, and of a wide spread of early witnesses; the indicative appears in later correctors of Sinaiticus and Vaticanus and in many later copies. The Tyndale House editors give great weight to the earliest manuscripts, and on that principle they print what those manuscripts say. Its defenders add that a subjunctive is not out of place in Paul, who often moves from what God has done to what believers should do, and that let us enjoy the peace we have is a good Pauline sentence. They also point out that καυχώμεθα (kauchōmetha) in 5:2 and 5:3, which the BSB renders 'we rejoice', has the same spelling in the indicative and the subjunctive, because of the way this kind of verb contracts, so the paragraph could be read as a series of appeals.

The case for the indicative is the case from the argument, and it is also strong. Bruce Metzger's Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament records that the committee behind the United Bible Societies' text chose the indicative even though they judged the manuscript support for the subjunctive to be better, because Paul at this point is not exhorting but stating. Romans 5:1-11 is a chain of things accomplished: justified, gained access, reconciled, saved. An appeal to have peace with God would interrupt an argument whose point is that peace has been made. And because omicron and omega were pronounced alike, the earliest manuscripts are less decisive here than usual: an early mishearing could spread widely. On this view the indicative is what Paul must have meant, and the subjunctive is an early slip of the ear. Defenders of the subjunctive reply that a slip of the ear could run either way, and that choosing what Paul must have meant over what the oldest copies say is exactly the step a textual critic should be slowest to take. Each side, in other words, has an answer to the other's best argument.

You do not need to decide this today, and the Greek track does not decide it for you. Module 8 teaches you how to weigh a variant. Notice what the two readings share: both affirm that peace with God comes through justification by faith, and neither denies the other. The difference is whether Paul is telling the Romans what they have or urging them to live in it. Romans 6:1 has a smaller version of the same thing. The SBLGNT reads the subjunctive ἐπιμένωμεν, are we to continue; the text behind the KJV reads a future indicative, which the KJV renders 'Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?' (KJV), and the Byzantine text a present indicative, are we continuing. Here the English barely changes, which is itself a lesson: not every variant in mood changes what a reader would preach.

The optative was already fading from ordinary speech when the New Testament was written, and it survives there only 68 times in the SBLGNT. Luke and Acts have 28 of them, the letters that bear Paul's name 31, and the rest of the New Testament 9. Its two main uses are the wish and the remote possibility, and you will meet both.

The wish is the commoner. Mary answers the angel in Luke 1:38, γένοιτό μοι κατὰ τὸ ῥῆμά σου (genoito moi kata to rhēma sou), 'May it happen to me according to your word.' Paul prays in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 that 'the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely', with an aorist active optative for may he sanctify. Peter's curse on Simon in Acts 8:20, 'May your silver perish with you', uses εἴη (eiē, may it be), the present optative of the verb to be. And in Mark 11:14 Jesus says to the fig tree, 'May no one ever eat of your fruit again', with φάγοι (phagoi, may he eat), an aorist active optative. A wish in the optative is not weaker than a command; in the mouth of Jesus to the fig tree, it is a word of judgment.

The remote possibility usually comes with the little particle ἄν (an), which marks a statement as contingent. The Ethiopian in Acts 8:31 says Πῶς γὰρ ἂν δυναίμην (pōs gar an dynaimēn), 'How can I', more literally how could I possibly, unless someone guides me. Luke 1:62 reports, in an indirect question, that the relatives made signs to Zechariah to ask what he would want the child to be called, and the verb θέλοι (theloi, he would want) is optative. These are polite, educated forms, and their frequency in Luke and Acts is one small mark of Luke's literary Greek.

Then there is μὴ γένοιτο, literally may it not come to be. It appears fifteen times in the SBLGNT. Once it is the crowd's horrified reaction to the parable of the tenants in Luke 20:16, which the BSB renders 'May such a thing never happen!' Fourteen times it is Paul. In one of those, Galatians 6:14, it is a true wish with an infinitive, which the BSB renders 'may I never boast, except in the cross'. In the other thirteen, ten of them in Romans, it stands alone as Paul's flat rejection of a false conclusion, and nearly every time the false conclusion has been put as a question that someone might draw from Paul's own teaching. Romans 3:4, 3:6, 3:31, 6:2, 6:15, 7:7, 7:13, 9:14, 11:1 and 11:11, 1 Corinthians 6:15, Galatians 2:17 and 3:21 are the places, and reading them together on your phone is one of the quickest ways to see how Paul argues.

How should it be translated? The KJV's 'God forbid' (KJV) has been loved for four hundred years, and it has the force of the Greek, but the Greek has no word for God in it. The BSB gives 'Certainly not!' in Romans 6:2, which keeps the force and loses the shape of a wish, and gives the same Greek as 'May such a thing never happen!' in Luke 20:16, which keeps the wish. Other translations give by no means, absolutely not, or of course not. None is wrong. Each is a decision about which part of the Greek to carry over when English cannot carry all of it. A student who knows that μὴ γένοιτο is an optative of wish can explain to a congregation why the English varies and what the Greek actually says: Paul recoils from the very idea, as if praying that it might never become real.

Step back from verse 2 and read Romans 6:1-14 again with the moods in view. The questions of verses 1 and 15 are deliberative subjunctives: are we to continue in sin? are we to sin? Each is met with μὴ γένοιτο. Between them, verses 2 to 10 are almost entirely indicative: we died, ἐβαπτίσθημεν (ebaptisthēmen, we were baptized), our old self συνεσταυρώθη (synestaurōthē, was crucified with him). These are aorist indicatives, presented as things that happened. Verse 11 then turns: λογίζεσθε ἑαυτοὺς εἶναι νεκροὺς μὲν τῇ ἁμαρτίᾳ (logizesthe heautous einai nekrous men tē hamartia), 'So you too must count yourselves dead to sin'. Verses 12 and 13 continue with imperatives, and verse 14 ends with a future indicative, ἁμαρτία γὰρ ὑμῶν οὐ κυριεύσει (hamartia gar hymōn ou kyrieusei), 'For sin shall not be your master'.

Two small grammatical cautions sit inside that summary. First, λογίζεσθε in verse 11 has the same spelling in the indicative and the imperative, like κατεργάζεσθε in Philippians 2:12 from the last lesson. Translations read it as a command, because it follows the indicatives as their application and leads into the imperatives of verse 12, and that reading is very widely shared; but notice that, again, the paragraph decides and not the ending. Second, the future indicative in verse 14 can be a promise or, as in the commandments, a form of command. Most interpreters read it here as a promise grounded in the clause that follows, because you are not under law but under grace.

Theologians call this pattern the indicative and the imperative: Paul states what God has done, and then commands what that makes possible. The Systematic Theology track's lesson on Sanctification uses this very chapter to explain it, and sets out how Reformed, Lutheran, Wesleyan, Catholic and Orthodox Christians understand the relation between the two. Go there for that discussion. What the Greek student adds is the ability to see the pattern on the page. You can point to the place where the verbs change mood, and show a congregation that Paul did not begin Romans 6 with a command. He began with a question in the subjunctive, a refusal in the optative, and a long run of indicatives, and only then said: count yourselves dead to sin.

Grammar does not tell you everything here, and you should say so. The indicatives of Romans 6 tell you what Paul presents as true of believers. They do not tell you, by their mood, how that truth is experienced, whether as a decisive break that settles the question of sin's dominion, a status to be laid hold of by faith, or a beginning that grows. Christians with different convictions on those questions all read the same aorist indicatives. What every reader must accept is the order: the refusal in verse 2 rests on something that has happened, and the commands rest on the refusal.

Return to the verb table for your capstone passage. Beside the Voice column you added in the last lesson, add a column headed Mood. Go through your passage in STEP Bible and write the mood of every finite verb in full words: indicative, subjunctive, imperative or optative. For participles and infinitives write participle or infinitive, and leave them for the next two lessons.

Next, put a ring around every row that is not indicative. For each ringed row, look at the word immediately before the verb, and at the person and number, and write one short phrase saying what the mood is doing: purpose after ἵνα, deliberative question, let us appeal, emphatic denial, prohibition, condition after ἐάν, command, or wish. If you cannot tell, write a question mark and the verse, and bring it to the tutor or to a friend who is studying with you.

Then check your passage for any verb whose form could be read in two moods. The commonest are second person plural forms in -εσθε (-esthe) and -ετε (-ete), which can be indicative or imperative, and contracted verbs whose indicative and subjunctive are spelled alike. Compare two translations at each such place, the BSB and one other you can read on your phone, and write down which mood each translation chose and what in the paragraph supports it.

Finally, write one sentence at the foot of the page on the sequence of moods in your passage, as this lesson did for Romans 6: where it states, where it asks, where it commands, where it wishes. If your passage is mostly indicative, say what it presents as true. If it turns to commands, say where, and what the commands rest on. That sentence will become the spine of your capstone outline.