| 11. Linguistic Exegesis The clause opens with veatta {וְעַתָּה | wə-ʿaṭṭāh} ‘and now’, a discourse marker signaling a sharp turn in the dialogue and introducing the speaker’s protest. The explicit subject atta {אַתָּה | ʾat-tāh} heightens the confrontational focus (“you”) before the participle omer {אֹמֵר | ʾō-mēr} ‘are saying’, which presents the command as the other party’s current insistence. Two successive imperatives, lekh emor {לֵךְ אֱמֹר | lēkh ʾĕmōr} ‘go, say’, function as a tight commissioning formula: movement followed by reporting, conveying urgency without extra modifiers. The prepositional phrase laadoneikha {לַאדֹנֶיךָ | la-ʾădōnê-khā} ‘to your master’ specifies the recipient via a second person suffix, tying the risky report directly to the addressee’s chain of authority. The particle hinneh {הִנֵּה | hin-nēh} ‘look’ introduces the message content as an attention-demanding announcement, and the final placement of Eliyahu {אֵלִיָּהוּ | ʾê-lîy-yā-hû} gives rhetorical weight to the name as the climax of what must be reported. English quotation formatting is used to reflect the shift from narration (“you are saying”) to the embedded instructions and the quoted announcement. |