Mark 6 : 16

Greek uses aorist participle ἀκούσας with postpositive δέ; Peshitta employs temporal particle ܟܕ ('when') with perfect ܫܡܥ plus ܕܝܢ; Vulgate uses ablative absolute Quo audito. All three express the same temporal-causal relationship but through different syntactic strategies characteristic of each language.

Greek includes the definite article ὁ before Ἡρῴδης, standard for proper names in Koine; Syriac and Latin lack articles as both languages do not grammaticalize definiteness in the same way for proper nouns.

Greek ἔλεγεν (imperfect, 'was saying') suggests iterative or durative aspect; Peshitta ܐܡܪ (perfect) and Vulgate ait (perfect) both use perfective forms, treating Herod's statement as a single completed utterance rather than emphasizing its ongoing nature.

Greek ὅτι and Vulgate colon mark the transition to direct discourse explicitly; Peshitta omits any discourse marker, moving directly from verb to quoted speech, a common Syriac stylistic feature where context suffices to signal direct quotation.

Greek and Vulgate front the relative pronoun ὃν / Quem ('whom') in accusative, creating a left-dislocated object for rhetorical emphasis before the main clause. Peshitta restructures entirely, placing the subject ܝܘܚܢܢ (John) first, followed by the relative clause ܕܐܢܐ ܦܣܩܬ ܪܫܗ ('whom I beheaded'), reflecting Semitic preference for topic-first word order.

Greek ἀπεκεφάλισα and Vulgate decollavi both use single lexemes meaning 'beheaded' (from κεφαλή / collum respectively). Peshitta employs the periphrastic construction ܦܣܩܬ ܪܫܗ ('I cut his head'), a two-word phrase (verb + object with possessive suffix) that is the standard Syriac idiom for decapitation, lacking a single-word equivalent.

Greek places Ἰωάννην at the end of the relative clause as direct object; Vulgate mirrors this with Joannem. Peshitta fronts ܝܘܚܢܢ to clause-initial position before the demonstrative ܗܘ, creating a topicalized structure ('John — he whom I beheaded') that differs syntactically while preserving semantic content.

Greek employs triple emphasis with οὗτος ἐστιν αὐτὸς ('this one is he himself'), using both demonstrative and intensive pronoun plus copula. Peshitta uses single ܗܘ ('he'); Vulgate uses hic ('this one'). The Greek construction is rhetorically emphatic, while the other traditions achieve the same identificatory force more economically.

Greek ἐκ νεκρῶν ('from [the] dead', genitive plural adjective used substantively) and Vulgate a mortuis (ablative plural adjective) both use adjectival constructions. Peshitta employs ܡܢ ܒܝܬ ܡܝܬܐ ('from the house of the dead'), a distinctive Semitic idiom using the construct phrase 'house of' (ܒܝܬ) to denote the realm or abode of the dead, reflecting Sheol/underworld conceptualization absent from the Greek and Latin formulations.