| 22. Linguistic Exegesis The clause opens with a fronted subject, ve-hamelekh Asa {וְהַמֶּ֨לֶךְ אָסָ֜א | wə-ham-meleḵ ʾā-sāʾ}, establishing royal agency before the causative verb hishmia {הִשְׁמִ֤יעַ | hiš-mîaʿ} ‘he caused to hear’, a Hiphil perfect that presents the act as a completed official announcement. The object chain et-kol-yehudah {אֶת־כָּל־יְהוּדָה֙ | ʾeṯ-kol-yə-hûḏāh} portrays the proclamation’s total scope, and the terse existential negation ein naki {אֵ֣ין נָקִ֔י | ʾên nāqî} ‘there was no exempt one’ functions as an emphatic parenthetical, pressing universal participation. The narrative then advances through wayyiqtol forms: vayisa'u {וַיִּשְׂא֞וּ | way-yiśśəʾû} ‘and they carried away’ introduces the people’s response, while the coordinated objects “stones” and “timbers” specify dismantling rather than mere seizure. The relative clause asher banah Baasha {אֲשֶׁ֥ר בָּנָ֖ה בַּעְשָׁ֑א | ʾăšer bānāh baʿāšāʾ} links the materials to Baasha’s prior construction, highlighting a reversal: what one king erected is stripped and reassigned. The final sequence vayiven bam {וַיִּ֤בֶן בָּם֙ | way-yiḇen bām} ‘and he built with them’ uses the prepositional pronominal “with them” to mark purposeful reuse, culminating in two place names that close the verse as the strategic outcome of the decree. |