| 34. Linguistic Exegesis The verse opens with the conditional protasis marked by ve’im {וְאִם | wə-’im} ‘and if’, introducing a first-class condition. This protasis comprises two coordinated vav-prefixed verbs tashuv {תָּשׁוּב | tā-šūv} ‘you return’ and ve-’āmartā {וְאָמַרְתָּ | wə-’ā-măr-tā} ‘and you say’. The direct speech features chiastic parallelism of ’ănî {אֲנִי | ’ă-nî} ‘I’ and ’avdĕkhā {עַבְדְּךָ | ’av-dĕ-khā} ‘your servant’, framed by the temporal pair mê’āz {מֵאָז | mê-’ā-z} ‘from then’ and wə-’attâh {וְעַתָּה | wə-’ä-ṯ-tāh} ‘and now’. The result clause is signaled by the vav-consecutive Hiphil perfect wə-hêparţâ {וְהֵפַרְתָּ | wə-hê-par-tā} ‘and you will frustrate’. The direct object marker ’ēt {אֵת | ’ēt} precedes the construct noun ‘ăṣaṯ {עֲצַת | ’ă-ṣaṯ} ‘counsel’ of ’Aḥîṭôp̄el {אֲחִיתֹפֶל | ’ă-ḥî-ṭō-p̄el} ‘Ahithophel’, rendered as a possessive in English. The translation preserves the protasis–apodosis structure and parallelism while adapting Hebrew vav forms to English conditional and result constructions, and conveys ha-melekh {הַמֶּלֶךְ | ham-mé-leḵ} ‘the king’ with an appropriate honorific. |