Yeah, compound verbs in Greek are tricky. For those who would have no reason to know, a compound verb involves taking a verb (that already means something) and (in Grek) adding what is otherwise a preposition to it at its beginning to provide a different meaning, nuance, or emphasis. We have them in English but they’re a bit different from Greek; e.g. you can change a person or shortchange a person; you can sit or babysit; etc. Often in English there is no self-standing verb involved, just different compounds: involve, revolve, devolve — but we don’t have a verb “volve.” In Greek it’s usually a regular ole verb with a variety of prepositions that can be added to make it a different verb with different nuance/emphasis/ etc.
In this particular case, the verbs are AIRO and the compound EPAIRO. Sometimes using the compound does not necessarily change gthe meaing much if at all. In a Greek lexicon the main definition of AIRO is “lift up” or “raise” and the main definition of EPAIRO is “lift up” or “raise” But in different literary contexts they can signify difrerent things, depending for example on what the object is. EPAIRO usually does mean something like “elevate” (to lift from teh ground, to raise to the lips, to elevate in importance) (The main verb is AIRO compounde with the preposition EP which usually means “upon” — so “lifted upon the waters, or, in Englishm lifted up); AIRO itself can mean a range of things connected with “lift” “raise” but also “take” “pick up” “carry” etc.
The Greek OT of Genesus 7:17 says that during the flood the waters came and “lifted up” the ark (i.e., from the ground) with the compound verb EPAIRO Matthew 24:3 refers to the passage but not with the compound verb EPAIRO but just hte verb AIRO. In this case though it is not the ark that is the object fo the verb, but the people who weren’t in the ark. Now the verb just means “take” or “carry” — that is, the floods carried them away (i.e., killed them).
And that’s our Greek lesson for the day.