| 12. Linguistic Exegesis The verse begins with the vocative achai {אַחַי | ʾaḥay} ‘my brothers’, establishing direct appeal through kinship. It then uses the construct chain atzmi u-vesari {עַצְמִי וּבְשָׂרִי | ʿaṣmî u-və-ṣārî} ‘my bone and my flesh’, a Hebrew idiom for closest relatives. The repetition of atem {אַתֶּם | ʾattəm} ‘you’ emphasizes personal responsibility. The imperfect verb tihyu {תִהְיוּ | tīhyû} ‘will you be’ forms a rhetorical question about continued attitude. The adjective acharonim {אַחֲרוֹנִים | ʾaḥărô-nîm} ‘last ones’ contrasts expected familial loyalty, intensified by clause-final position. The hiphil infinitive lehashiv {לְהָשִׁיב | lə-hā-šîḇ} ‘to bring back’ links causative action to the object ha-melekh {הַמֶּלֶךְ | hā-me-lēk} ‘the king’. This parallelism underlines both relational bond and communal duty in the narrative. |