| 23. Linguistic Exegesis The verse opens with the conditional conjunction ki {כִּי | kî} ‘when/if’, setting up a legal scenario. The verb yihyeh {יִהְיֶה | yihyēh} ‘occurs’ introduces the protasis. The noun phrases naarah {נַעֲרָה | na‘arâ} ‘young woman’ and betulah {בְתוּלָה | bətûlāh} ‘virgin’ appear in apposition. The word meorasah {מְאֹרָשָׂה | mə’ôrāśâ} ‘betrothed’ establishes her binding status to leish {לְאִישׁ | lə’îš} ‘a man’. A second man (ish {אִישׁ | ʾîš} ‘man’) then performs a sequence of actions linked by “and”: umetzaah {וּמְצָאָהּ | üməṣā’āh} ‘and finds her’, veshachav {וְשָׁכַב | wəšākāv} ‘and lies’, completed by the prepositional phrase immah {עִמָּהּ | ʿimmāh} ‘with her’. The locative bair {בָּעִיר | bā’îr} ‘in the city’ specifies the setting. This asyndetic listing conveys the legal facts that the following verse resolves in the apodosis. |