| 2. Linguistic Exegesis The verse opens with the perfect verb alah {עָלָה | ʿā-lāh} ‘he goes up’, marking Moab’s ritual ascent. A series of coordinated objects—habayit {הַבַּיִת | hab-bā-yit} ‘the house’, wedibon {וְדִיבֹן | wə-dib-ōn} ‘and Dibon’, and habamot {הַבָּמוֹת | hab-bā-mōt} ‘the high places’—is governed by the purpose phrase levekhi {לְבֶכִי | lə-vē-kī} ‘for weeping’. The prepositional pairs al-nevo {עַל־נְבוֹ | ʿal-nə-vō} ‘over Nebo’ and ve-al meideba {וְעַל מֵידְבָא | wə-ʿal mē-ḏe-bāʾ} ‘and over Medeba’ localize the lament. The main clause then shifts to the Piel imperfect yeylil {יְיֵלִיל | yə-yē-lîl} ‘wails’, creating vivid present-action narration. The distress markers qarcha {קָרְחָה | qā-ra-ḥā} ‘baldness’ and geruah {גְּרוּעָה | gə-rû-ʿāh} ‘shorn’ follow as verbless clauses, each tied to the degree phrase bekol-rosav {בְּכָל־רֹאשָׁיו | bə-ḵōl-rō-šāv} ‘on all its heads’ and the construct kol-zakan {כָּל־זָקָן | kāl-zā-qān} ‘every beard’, employing parallelism to emphasize communal mourning. |