Does this sentence use the passive voice?

Question

"The Jews in Psalm 137 are weeping because the Babylonians had destroyed Jerusalem."

I'm still a little confused about the passive voice--but I must over-use it because my teachers nag me about it. ;)

Answer 1

Your sentence is not passive voice. The hallmark of passive voice is that the subject of the sentence is left unstated.

For example:
The door was opened. Passive voice.
We don't know who opened the door.

Here's a good discussion:
http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/passivevoice.html

If this or another answer here proves helpful in your research, you can encourage good answers by choosing one answer as the "best answer."

Cheers,
Bruce

Answer 2

The only way I see to make your sentence, "The Jews in Psalm 137 are weeping because the Babylonians had destroyed Jerusalem," is to get rid of the verb that ends with 'ing,' one sign of a passive voice, and say 'wept' instead of the whole phrase 'are weeping;' then also to leave out the word 'had' in reference to what the Babylonians did. They 'destroyed Jerusalem,' and there isn't really any reason to put 'had' in there.
So then the sentence would read, "The Jews in Psalm 137 wept because the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem." To me this is a sentence with a more active voice. I think you'll see the difference, too. The trick is to make your verbs as active as possible. Try dropping words and changing tenses, etc., when you are unsure of a sentence. I think you'll know when you've got it where the teachers want it to be. Luck!

Answer 3

My Merriam-Webster states that the passive voice is "Asserting that the grammatical subject is subjected to or affected by the action represented by the verb."
I restate:

" In Psalm 137, after the Babs had destroyed Jer's'm, the distraught Jews wept in great frustration and grief"

Maybe your teacher wants describable 'activity'. I don't know. All I did was give an effect (the Babs destruction) and the result, .... the Jews .....

I used to be a pretty good writer. Maybe like this:

Surveying the damage to their homes and property, the weeping Jews drew up as one, and, man and woman, they girded their loins for battle and set out after the fleeing Babylonians............

Course it didn't happen that way, but Harrison Ford would've looked good in the part, huh?

Maybe, you better ask 'Teach' You'll get it! Have fun, Kiddo!

Answer 4

Passive is a voice, not a tense. You can have passives in any tense.

...because Jerusalem had been destroyed (by the Babylonians)

The above would be passive voice.

In passives, whether the "doer" is mentioned or not, the subject is the recipient of the action.

The wall was destroyed. Passive
(The wall receives the action of the verb, destroyed.)

That novel was written by Agatha Christie.
(The novel receives the action of the verb, write.)

Except in cases where you're using "was written by, was created by, was invented by, was composed by," and similar creative situations, we generally avoid passives, and if they are occasionally used, the "doer" is usually omitted.

We do, however, use it in the case of scientific writing, where the "doer" is often unimportant.
Example: "Sodium was added to the mixture, which was prepared in an oven that was set at 250F."


Hope this helps.

Answer 5

In English, the energetic voice is favourite over the passive voice because it provides a more suitable voice. social gathering: energetic: Jane performed the violin. Passive: The violin become performed by technique of Jane. In energetic sentences, the challenge is performing the verb, yet in passive sentences the challenge is receiving the action of the verb.