It may be that the usage would not seem so strange to us if English
distinguished between the singular and plural forms of "your". Let me
imagine for a moment that a Southern (U.S.) style evangelist is up in
front saying in highly modulated tones:
"Yuh've GOT to have the word of GOD in your HEART!"
Here he's speaking to multiple people; if this were translated into NT
Greek, the proper forms for "Yuh've" and "your" would be plural. But he
is in one sense thinking of each member individually, and so he says
"heart" rather than "hearts."
Similarly, if he says,
"I care about your salvation."
he's probably thinking about salvation on an individual level.
An example is John 14.1:
"Don't keep letting your heart be unsettled...."
Or another example of plural/singular combination that doesn't even use
a pronoun is Matt 5.8:
"Fortunate [are] the ones pure in the heart ..."
It seems to me that a plural possessive with a singular noun could also
refer to something shared or in common, but I have found it hard this
morning to come up with an example that was unambiguously referring to
something shared.
Regards,
Jim V.
James H. Vellenga | jvellenga@viewlogic.com
Viewlogic Systems, Inc. __|__ 508-303-5491
293 Boston Post Road West | FAX: 508-460-8213
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