| 16. Linguistic Exegesis The clause begins with the substantival participle roekha {רֹאֶיךָ | rōʾēḵā} ‘those seeing you’ as the subject group, immediately oriented toward the addressee by elekha {אֵלֶיךָ | ʾēlēḵā} ‘to you’. The repetition of elekha {אֵלֶיךָ | ʾēlēḵā} after yashgichu {יַשְׁגִּיחוּ | yašgîḥû} ‘they will look intently’ creates rhetorical focus: all attention is directed at “you.” The sequence of imperfects (yashgichu ... yitbonanu {יִתְבּוֹנָנוּ | yitbônənû} ‘they will examine closely’) portrays sustained, progressive scrutiny, first visual, then reflective. The interrogative haze {הֲזֶה | hăzzeh} ‘is this?’ introduces an astonished question, followed by haish {הָאִישׁ | hāʾîš} ‘the man’ as the surprising identification. Two parallel Hiphil participles, margiz {מַרְגִּיז | margîz} ‘one who causes to tremble’ and marish {מַרְעִישׁ | marʿîš} ‘one who causes to shake’, function as attributive/relative descriptions; their paired objects haaretz {הָאָרֶץ | hāʾāreṣ} ‘the earth’ and mamlakhot {מַמְלָכוֹת | mamlāḵōṯ} ‘kingdoms’ produce balanced parallelism that heightens the contrast between former destabilizing power and present humiliation under observation. The English keeps the forward movement from gaze to evaluation and preserves the quoted interrogative to retain the tone of incredulity. |