ὑπὸ

You know, I wonder what my ancestors did to survive, considering my instincts, which are to neglect a thing for a couple of years and then come back to it. Not many things in the world that works with, so far I only found trees.

Well, the attitude has its advantages in other fields as well, but they are of a more ambivalent nature. For instance, I've been wondering for the last couple of years, what the word ὑπὸ means. Now, there is of course a method to find out, and you don't have to be a genius to apply it, but I felt a distinct repulsion towards it and always brushed it aside, namely to go to Google, type ὑπὸ into the search field followed by site:greekbible.com.

The upshot? Well, it gave me time to ask reverends or priests, whether they knew what ὑπὸ means, whether it might mean through in the sense of by way of. None of them did know. And so, I learned something about the clergy that otherwise wouldn't have come to my attention. Hence, returning to the wisdom of Erich Kästner that nothing good can come, unless it is done, I went to Google today and did the dastardly thing.

I found ὑπὸ being used in two senses. First, and not to the point, in the sense of the spatial relation under:

ὑπὸ τὸν μόδιον τεθῇ ἢ ὑπὸ τὴν κλίνην
be put under a bushel or under a couch

Most of the time though, it was used in the sense of coming from, owing to, issued or caused by, for instance

ἀνήχθη εἰς τὴν ἔρημον ὑπὸ τοῦ πνεύματος, πειρασθῆναι ὑπὸ τοῦ διαβόλου
led up into the desert by the holy spirit, tested by the devil

So, ἀποκτεῖναι [ἐν ῥομφαίᾳ καὶ ἐν λιμῷ καὶ ἐν θανάτῳ καὶ] ὑπὸ τῶν θηρίων τῆς γῆς tells us explicitly

killing [...] by (way of) the animals of the land

- and that would have been pretty useful information when the Black Death struck, but it is even useful now.