QUESTION
I’m wondering how to translate τε in this verse in Acts 12:17 in the Greek New Testament (GNT) NA27. I’m not used to seeing τε at the apparent end of the sentence, followed by a semicolon.
Acts 12:17 (NA27) κατασείσας δὲ αὐτοῖς τῇ χειρὶ σιγᾶν διηγήσατο [αὐτοῖς] πῶς ὁ κύριος αὐτὸν ἐξήγαγεν ἐκ τῆς φυλακῆς εἶπέν τε· ἀπαγγείλατε Ἰακώβῳ καὶ τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς ταῦτα. καὶ ἐξελθὼν ἐπορεύθη εἰς ἕτερον τόπον.
DENNIS’ RESPONSE
Here is a UBS and NA punctuation lesson for the Greek New Testament (GNT).
Obviously τε is not the last word in the independent clause because the following quote is the discourse object. Your confusion is actually over the ambiguous meaning of the Nestle Aland colon rather than the Greek grammar. The UBS punctuation for the same text is
Acts 12:17 (UBS) κατασείσας δὲ αὐτοῖς τῇ χειρὶ σιγᾷν διηγήσατο αὐτοῖς πῶς ὁ κύριος αὐτὸν ἐξήγαγεν ἐκ τῆς φυλακῆς, εἶπέν τε Ἀπαγγείλατε Ἰακώβῳ καὶ τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς ταῦτα. καὶ ἐξελθὼν ἐπορεύθη εἰς ἕτερον τόπον.
Notice that the UBS capitalizes the direct quote but the NA does not.
The NA colon is the punctuation for the START of the direct quote, among other things, since these Greek texts lack the quote marks of modern English. Sometimes the NA colon also signals the division between two independent clauses. (See Acts 12:5), which is what you thought it meant here.
When the postpositive coordinating conjunction τε and is the second word in the independent clause right before the direct quote, then a colon follows, as in Acts 19:3.
Acts 19:3 (NA27) εἶπέν τε· εἰς τί οὖν ἐβαπτίσθητε; οἱ δὲ εἶπαν· εἰς τὸ Ἰωάννου βάπτισμα.
A second source of your confusion, since you are unfamiliar with the NA and UBS punctuation rules, is that, although both the colon and comma may separate independent clauses or main clauses, often no punctuation is used there at all when a new clause occurs, unlike the English rules. As you see, the UBS uses a comma between the independent clauses, but the NA lacks any punctuation there in this sentence, although it uses the colon in Acts 12:5 for that purpose.
Isn’t ambiguity fun?