| 21. Linguistic Exegesis The verse opens with the cohortative verb eredah {אֵֽרֲדָה | ʾē-ră-dāh} ‘I will go down,’ expressing deliberate divine intention rather than mere futurity. The particle na {נָּא | nā} follows in maqqef-connection, softening the statement and conveying immediacy or earnest resolve. The subsequent cohortative ve-ereh {וְאֶרְאֶה | wə-ʾer-ʾeh} ‘and I will see’ is joined by vav, forming a purpose sequence: descent in order to see. The complex form haketsakatah {הַכְּצַעֲקָתָּהּ | hak-kə-ṣa-ʿă-qā-tāh} combines interrogative ha with ke ‘according to’ and the construct tsaaqatah ‘her outcry,’ yielding a comparative clause, “whether it is according to the outcry.” The participle habaah {הַבָּאָה | hab-bā-ʾāh} ‘that has come’ modifies this outcry, and elai {אֵלַי | ʾē-lay} ‘to me’ stresses that the cry has reached God directly. The perfect asu {עָשׂוּ | ʿā-śû} ‘they have done’ presents the inhabitants’ deeds as a completed reality under scrutiny, while kalah {כָּלָה | kā-lāh} functions adverbially, “completely, altogether,” intensifying the possible correspondence between report and reality. The clause ve-im-lo {וְאִם־לֹא | wə-ʾim-lōʾ} ‘and if not’ introduces a conditional alternative, followed by the cohortative edaah {אֵדָעָה | ʾē-dā-ʿāh} ‘I will know,’ which concludes the verse with God’s resolve to possess experiential, verified knowledge. The syntactic flow moves from intention (cohortatives) to evaluation (comparative “whether according to the outcry”) to conditional outcome (if so / if not), which undergirds the translations’ portrayal of God’s personal investigation and commitment to just judgment. |