Prepositions – Biblical Greek — Wednesday in the Word

Anyone else find Greek prepositions to be slippery little beasts? Some propositions fit nicely in a range of meanings. Others seem to vary widely.

Basics

A preposition is a word that indicates the relationship between two words (e.g. under, over, with, in, out, etc.)
The word that follows the preposition is called the object of the preposition.
A prepositional phrase is the preposition, its object and any modifiers (e.g under the bed).
In Greek, when a preposition has a specific meaning, its object must be in a certain case. In translating, look at the case of the object, which typically follows the preposition.
The preposition itself is not inflected; its form does not vary, but its ending can contract depending on the following word.
The article is often omitted from Greek prepositional phrases.

Here’s my running summary of Greek prepositions and their main meanings depending on case.

Preposition	Accusative	Genitive	Dative
ἀπό (apo) G575	.	from, away from	.
ἀντί (anti)	.	instead of on behalf of	.
διά (dia) G1223	on account of for the sake of	through (of place & time); by means of	.
ἐκ, ἐξ (ek or ex) G1537	.	from out of	.
ἐν (in)	.	.	in, on, among (sometimes with)
εἰς (eis) G1519	into towards	.	.
ἐπί (epi) G1909	on, to, against, towards, upon	upon, over, on, at the time of	on the basis of, at, against, on
κατά (kata) G2596	according to, down to, during, through	against, down, from	.
μετά (meta) G3326	after (place & time)	among, with (accompaniment)	.
πρός (pros) G4314	to, towards, at, with	in the interest of (very rare)	at, near (very rare)
παρά (para) G3844	beside, alongside of	from, by, from beside	beside, in the presence of, near, with
περί (peri) G4012	around (place & time) about	concerning, about, on account of	.
σύν (sun) G5862	.	.	with, together with (accompaniment)
χωρίς (choris) G5565	.	without, apart from	.
ὑπέρ (huper) G5228	above, over, beyond, more than	on behalf of, for, concerning	.
ὑπό (hupo) G5259	under	by (of agent), under	‘