γέμει· (gemei) in Romans 3:14: Verb Third Person Singular Present Active Indicative
γέμει· (gemei) in Romans 3:14
Textual Witness
The cited line ends ἀρᾶς καὶ πικρίας γέμει, where γέμει is V-PAI-3S.
How The Form Affects Interpretation
The stative predicate concentrates the verse's image: the mouth is portrayed as so characterized by cursing and bitterness that they are called its contents.
How To Communicate It
Name the grammatical subject, identify the contents supplied by the genitives, and show how this one image joins Paul's larger testimony about accountable speech.
What Not To Say
- Grammatical form should serve context, not override it.
- Active morphology can carry a stative lexical meaning and should not be forced into a transitive action.
- Present aspect does not state that every utterance is continually a curse.
- The bodily image is one part of the scriptural chain, not a standalone total description.
What Does The Label Mean?
Verb: the form describes a state of fullness, saying what characterizes the mouth in the quoted indictment.
Present: portrays the mouth in the state named by the clause. The form does not calculate how often particular words are spoken.
Active in morphology, but lexically stative here: the mouth is full rather than actively filling an object.
Indicative: makes a direct statement inside the scriptural citation.
Third person: reports the condition of the subject rather than speaking as I, we, or you.
Not applicable to the verb; the genitives ἀρᾶς and πικρίας specify what the mouth is full of.
Singular: agrees with τὸ στόμα, the mouth, even though the relative ὧν points to plural people.
Not applicable: finite verb agreement here marks person and number, not gender.
What The Form Does In This Verse
The predicate agrees with the singular subject τὸ στόμα and is completed in sense by the coordinated genitives ἀρᾶς καὶ πικρίας.
A cited statement within Paul's ordered description of sinful speech and conduct.
It characterizes the mouth by naming cursing and bitterness as its contents.
It does not describe literal material inside a mouth, make the mouth an independent agent, or state the frequency of every utterance.
How Much The Form Matters Here
High: The stative predicate gives the cited mouth image its force by naming cursing and bitterness as its contents.
Singular present stative predicate. characterizes the mouth as full of the named contents. Attached to τὸ στόμα as subject and ἀρᾶς καὶ πικρίας as content genitives. Governed by the Romans 3:14 citation. Lexical meaning makes the active form stative in this construction.
What does the citation portray as filling the mouth? It names cursing and bitterness as the contents that characterize the mouth in this indictment.
Direct: The stative predicate directly supports is full, while the genitives supply of cursing and bitterness.
Active morphology does not require a dynamic English verb when the lexical construction is stative. The singular mouth is a representative bodily image connected to plural people by ὧν. Present aspect portrays the state but does not specify the rate of speech.
Active form means the mouth fills something: The lexical construction means be full, with the genitives naming contents. present tense means every spoken word: The form characterizes the cited state without quantifying individual utterances. bodily image is a literal inventory: Read mouth and contents as the citation's moral portrayal of speech.
How The Interpretation Is Derived
The cited line ends ἀρᾶς καὶ πικρίας γέμει, where γέμει is V-PAI-3S.
The lemma γέμω means to be full. In this clause, the following relationship is a state, while the genitives name its contents.
Singular agreement follows τὸ στόμα, present aspect portrays its state, and the coordinated genitives specify what fills the image. Active morphology need not imply a dynamic transitive action.
The citation portrays speech marked by cursing and bitterness as another witness to humanity's accountability under sin.
The mouth image belongs to the Scripture chain that silences boasting before Paul announces God's righteousness through faith.
Explain why English says is full even though the form is active, then let the two content nouns carry the moral description.
Do not turn an active morphology label into a claim that the mouth fills something else, or make present tense specify an unbroken stream of speech.