Page 87 - Doctrine and History of the Preservation of the Bible revised
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problem in quickly discerning who is the subject of the sentence (the one doing the crushing) and what
               is the direct object of the verb (the one being crushed).

               Because the noun "God" comes before the verb "will crush", the English reader sees "God" as the
               subject of the sentence, the performer of the verb's action. The noun "Satan" comes after the verb and
               is thus considered the recipient of the verb's action.
               However, consider the meaning of the sentence if the words of this verse were put in the following
               order: "But Satan shortly under your feet will crush the God of peace." All the same words are in this
               sentence, but their positions have been rearranged. Since the order of the words has changed, the
               reader of English understands that their role in the sentence has also changed. This example clearly
               illustrates how important "word order" is in the English language.

               The Greek language, however, operates altogether differently. It is what is called a fully "inflected
               language." Each Greek word actually changes form (inflection) based upon the role that it plays in the
               sentence. Verbs also inflect (change forms) to indicate things such as person, tense, mood, etc.
               Regardless of the order of the words in Romans 16:20, the reader of Greek would still be perfectly clear
               as to the fate of God's enemy and would not in the least be concerned about the possible demise of the
               God of peace.

               Thus, it is important to understand what the case of each Greek noun indicates and what the form of
               every Greek verb is implying.

               2.  Nouns – A noun in the Greek language is viewed just like the English noun.  Every noun possesses
               number, gender, and case.

                                      A.  Number can either be singular or plural. A noun that is in a singular form
                                      indicates "only one". A noun that is in the plural form indicates "more than
                                      one."

                                      B.  Gender, as it relates to nouns and other substantives in the Greek language,
               does not necessarily refer to "male" and "female". It refers to grammatical gender, which is determined
               purely by grammatical usage and must be learned by observation (very similar to other foreign
               languages like French or German).   Although nouns referring to people or animals that are obviously
               "male" or "female" would normally (but not always) be classified as masculine or feminine accordingly,
               the gender of most nouns seems to be somewhat arbitrary. Every noun must fall into one of three
               categories of gender: masculine, feminine, or neuter. In analyzing a sentence as a whole, gender may
               play a key role, especially when considered along with the adjectives, pronouns, and relative clauses
               that may be present.

               For example: "And take...the sword of the spirit which is the word of God" (Eph. 6:17). The word "sword"
               in Greek is feminine gender and the word "spirit" is neuter gender. So, it is important in this sentence to
               find out what is the antecedent of the relative pronoun "which". (i.e., What is the "which" referring back
               to?) The word "which" in this sentence is neuter, therefore it is referring back to the word "spirit" and
               not "sword." Thus, this sentence means: "And take...the sword of the spirit which (spirit) is the word of
               God."

               C.  Case – Case classifies a noun with their relationship to other elements in the sentence.  There are five
               cases:

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