| 3. Linguistic Exegesis The direct-object marker ve’et {וְאֵת | wə-ʾēt} ‘direct-object marker’ introduces shnei vaneha {שְׁנֵי בָנֶיהָ | šə-nê bā-nê-hā} ‘two her sons’ as the object of the preceding verb. The relative pronoun asher {אֲשֶׁר | ʾă-šer} ‘who’ begins a restrictive clause identifying the son whose name shem ha’eḥad {שֵׁם הָאֶחָד | šēm hā-ʾe-ḥāḏ} ‘the name of the one’ is Gershom {גֵּרְשֹׁם | gēr-šōm} ‘sojourner-name’. The causal conjunction ki {כִּי | kî} ‘for/because’ introduces embedded speech in the perfect verb phrase ʾāmar gēr hayīti {אָמַר גֵּר הָיִיתִי | ʾā-mar gēr hā-yî-tî} ‘he said, “I have been a sojourner”’. The prepositional phrase b’erets nokhriyah {בְּאֶרֶץ נָכְרִיָּה | bə-ʾe-reṣ nō-ḵri-yāh} ‘in a foreign land’ completes the clause, with nokhriyah intensifying the sense of alien residence. |