| 2. Linguistic Exegesis The clause opens with the verbal sequence asu milchamah {עָשׂוּ מִלְחָמָה | ʿā-śû mil-ḥā-māh} “they made war,” a common Hebrew verb–object collocation that functions idiomatically as “to wage war.” No explicit subject is expressed; it is supplied from the previous verse, so the third person plural verb carries the subject information. The particle et {אֶת־ | ʾeṯ} and its conjunctive counterpart veʾet {וְאֶת־ | wə-ʾeṯ} introduce a coordinated series of direct objects, each consisting of a king and his city, e.g., bera melech sedom {בֶּרַע מֶלֶךְ סְדֹם | be-raʿ me-leḵ sə-ḏōm} “Bera, king of Sodom” and birsha melech amorah {בִּרְשַׁע מֶלֶךְ עֲמֹרָה | bir-šaʿ me-leḵ ʿă-mō-rāh} “Birsha, king of Gomorrah.” The repeated pattern king + city, joined by simple conjunctions, produces a rhythmic, catalog-like listing that gives equal prominence to each coalition member. The sequence around Zeboiim includes a written–pointed double form, tsviyyim tsevoyim {צביים צְבוֹיִים | ṣə-ḇî-yim ṣə-ḇō-yim}, which functions together as the city name. The final segment umelech bela hi-tsoar {וּמֶלֶךְ בֶּלַע הִיא־צֹעַר | û-me-leḵ be-laʿ hîʾ-ṣō-ʿar} uses the independent pronoun hi {הִיא | hîʾ} in an equative construction “it is Zoar,” clarifying that Bela is the earlier designation for the later-known Zoar. In English, the idiomatic verb–object “made war” is preserved in formal style but rendered more naturally as “went to war” in dynamic style, and the Hebrew appositional clarification with hi is expressed with “that is” or “which is” to make the identification of Bela with Zoar explicit while retaining the ordered listing of kings and their cities. |