| 25. Linguistic Exegesis The clause opens with vayhi {וַיְהִ֛י | wa-yəhî} ‘and it happened’, a conventional discourse marker that signals a new episode in a historical sequence. A fronted temporal frame, bashanah hachamishit {בַּשָּׁנָ֥ה הַחֲמִישִׁ֖ית | baš-šā-nāh ha-ḥă-mî-šît} ‘in the fifth year’, anchors the event to a regnal chronology; the following phrase lamelekh rechavam {לַמֶּ֣לֶךְ רְחַבְעָ֑ם | lam-me-lek rə-ḥaḇ-ʿām} uses the lamed construction as a dating idiom meaning “in the reign of King Rehoboam.” The main predication begins with the verb alah {עָלָ֛ה | ʿā-lāh} ‘went up’, preserving Hebrew verb-first narration and depicting a military approach. The naming shushaq … shishaq {שושק שִׁישַׁ֥ק | šûšaq … šîšaq} reflects a ketiv/qere phenomenon (written form versus read form) while referring to the same ruler; this is followed by the apposition melek-mitsrayim {מֶֽלֶךְ־מִצְרַ֖יִם | me-lek-miṣ-rā-yim} ‘king of Egypt,’ identifying his political status. The prepositional phrase al-yerushalayim {עַל־יְרוּשָׁלָֽ͏ִם | ʿal-yə-rû-šā-lā-yim} ‘against Jerusalem’ expresses hostile orientation; in English, this is naturally rendered with a subject before the verb while retaining the temporal fronting and the adversative force of ‘against’. |