| 19. Linguistic Exegesis The verse is a brief summary statement that closes a unit: the fronted subject umilchamah {וּמִלְחָמָ֖ה | û-mil-ḥā-māh} ‘and war’ followed by lo {לֹא | lōʾ} ‘not’ and the perfect hayetah {הָיָתָה | hā-yə-tāh} ‘was’ forms a categorical denial (“war did not occur”), using the perfect to describe a completed stretch of time viewed as a whole. The preposition ad {עַד | ʿaḏ} ‘until’ introduces the temporal endpoint. That endpoint is expressed through the construct shnat-sheloshim {שְׁנַת־שְׁלֹשִׁים | šə-naṯ-šə-lō-šîm} plus vechamesh {וְחָמֵשׁ | wə-ḥā-mēš}, where Hebrew states tens before ones (“thirty and five”), naturally rendered in English as an ordinal (“thirty-fifth”). The phrase lemalkhut Asa {לְמַלְכוּת אָסָא | lə-mal-kûṯ ʾā-sāʾ} ties the time reference specifically to Asa’s period of rule, with lamed marking relation (“for/in regard to the reign”). The final setumah marker ס signals a paragraph break in the Hebrew tradition, reinforcing the sentence’s function as a concluding notice. |