| 21. Linguistic Exegesis The verse, in Biblical Aramaic, continues the extended description of the great tree in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream. It opens with a nominal clause: weʿapyeh {וְעָפְיֵהּ | wə-ʿāp-yēh} “and its foliage” functioning as subject, followed by the predicate adjective šappir {שַׁפִּירִ | šap-pîr} “beautiful, fair.” The pronominal suffix on weʿapyeh links the foliage back to the already-mentioned tree, and the vav conjunction continues the sequence of descriptive clauses from the previous context. A parallel nominal structure follows with weʾanbeh {וְאַנְבֵהּ | wə-ʾan-bēh} “and its fruit” plus the adjective śaggîʾā {שַׂגִּיאָ | śag-gî-ʾā} “abundant, great,” yielding the sense “its fruit was abundant.” These two parallel noun-plus-adjective clauses foreground the tree’s attractiveness and productivity.
The sequence then shifts to a more complex nominal construction: ûmāzôn {וּמָז֥וֹן | û-mā-zōn} “and food, provision” is followed by the prepositional phrase ləḵol-bēh {לְכֹֽל־בֵּהּ | lə-ḵol-bēh} “for all in it.” This compresses “there was provision for all that was in it” into a succinct phrase, emphasizing universal supply rather than specifying the individual beneficiaries. The construct-plus-suffix structure within ləḵol-bēh encodes the relationship “all who were in it” in tightly packed morphology rather than through a separate relative clause.
The focus then turns to the spatial domains defined by the tree. Teḥôtôhî {תְּחוֹתוֹהִי | tə-ḥō-ṭō-hî} “under it” introduces the area beneath the tree’s canopy, while later ûḇeʾanpôhî {וּבְאַנְפוֹהִי | û-ḇe-ʾan-pō-hî} “and in its branches” marks the space within its upper limbs. The verb tədur {תְּדֻר | tə-ḏur}, a Peal imperfect third feminine singular, takes the collective feminine ḥeiwat {חֵיוַת | ḥê-waṯ} “beasts” as its logical subject in the phrase ḥeiwat bārāʾ {חֵיוַת בָּרָא | ḥê-waṯ bā-rāʾ} “beasts of the field / open country,” yielding the sense “under it the beasts of the field would dwell.” The imperfect aspect presents this as a habitual or ongoing state rather than a one-time event.
The balancing clause uses yiškənan {יִשְׁכְּנַן | yiš-kə-nan}, Peal imperfect third masculine plural with energic nun, with ṣipprê {צִפְּרֵי | ṣip-pə-rê} “birds of” as subject and šemayyāʾ {שְׁמַיָּא | šə-may-yāʾ} “the heavens, the sky” as its genitive complement. The repetition of dwelling verbs (tədur and yiškənan) together with the vertical pair of prepositional phrases (“under it” and “in its branches”) creates a meristic picture: creatures of the earth below and birds of the sky above all find shelter and habitat in relation to this single tree. In translation, the Aramaic word order—where prepositional phrases such as teḥôtôhî often precede the verb—is adjusted to standard English subject–verb–complement patterns (“under it the beasts of the field would dwell” → “under it the beasts of the field would dwell / Wild animals lived under its shade”), while preserving the hierarchical relationships encoded in the construct chains ḥeiwat bārāʾ and ṣipprê šemayyāʾ through English genitive phrases (“beasts of the field,” “birds of the heavens / sky”). |