| 15. Linguistic Exegesis The verse is a single narrative sentence composed of a chain of wayyiqtol verbs that advance the storyline. It begins with vayehalek {וַיֵּחָלֵק | way-yē-ḥā-lēq} ‘and he divided’, a Nifal wayyiqtol form that here carries a reflexive nuance, effectively ‘he divided himself’, describing Abram’s tactical splitting of forces. This is immediately followed by the prepositional phrase alehem {עֲלֵיהֶם | ʿă-lê-hem} ‘against them’, which specifies the direction and target of the maneuver. The temporal setting is then marked by layla {לַיְלָה | lāy-lāh} ‘night’, with the sequence “against them by night” tightly connecting tactic and timing. The pronoun hu {הוּא | hû} ‘he’ resumes and emphasizes the subject before adding vaavadav {וַעֲבָדָיו | wa-ʿă-vā-ḏāw} ‘and his servants’, forming a coordinated subject phrase “he and his servants.” The subsequent verbs vayakem {וַיַּכֵּם | way-yak-kēm} ‘and he struck them’ and vayirdfem {וֽ͏ַיִּרְדְּפֵם | way-yir-də-p̄ēm} ‘and he pursued them’ continue the wayyiqtol chain, narrating decisive defeat followed by extended pursuit. Spatially, the prepositional phrase ad-Khovah {עַד־חוֹבָה | ʿaḏ-ḥō-vāh} ‘as far as Hobah’ gives the limit of the chase, while the relative clause introduced by asher {אֲשֶׁר | ʾă-šer} ‘which’ adds a geographical clarification: missemol le-Damaseq {מִשְּׂמֹאל לְדַמָּשֶׂק | mis-sə-mōl lə-dam-mā-śeq} ‘to the north of Damascus’. The idiom missemol ‘from the left’ encodes the idea of ‘north’ from the perspective of facing east, a common Hebrew orientation system. In translation, the sequential wayyiqtol forms are rendered as simple past verbs to maintain fluent narrative movement, while the reflexive sense of vayehalek is expressed with “divided himself” or by specifying the divided forces in the dynamic rendering. The Hebrew relative clause is preserved with “which is to the north of Damascus,” making the spatial reference clear in contemporary English. |