Commentaries:
Robertson's Word Pictures (NT)
Asked (ephrwtwn). Imperfect of eperwtaw (epi and erwtaw) where Mark 4:10 has hrwtwn (uncompounded imperfect), both the tense and the use of epi indicate eager and repeated questions on the part of the disciples, perhaps dimly perceiving a possible reflection on their own growth.
What this parable might be (tiv auth eih h parabolh). A mistranslation, What this parable was (or meant). The optative eih is merely due to indirect discourse, changing the indicative estin (is) of the direct question to the optative eih of the indirect, a change entirely with the writer or speaker and without any change of meaning (Robertson, Grammar, pp. 1043f.).
Other Robertson's Word Pictures (NT) entries containing Luke 8:9:
Mark 5:41
Luke 8:4
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