| 11. Linguistic Exegesis The superscription massa {מַשָּׂא | maśśāʼ} ‘burden’ marks the pronouncement’s genre, immediately followed by the proper name Dumah {דּוּמָה | Dûmāh}, likely denoting an Edomite locale. The participle kore {קֹרֵא | qō-rēʼ} ‘one calling’ functions as the subject of a verbal clause, and the phrase miseir {מִשֵּׂעִיר | mi-sê-ʿîr} ‘from Seir’ locates the speaker geographically. The vocative shomer {שֹׁמֵר | šō-mēr} ‘watchman’ is repeated twice, each occurrence paired with the interrogative mah {מַה | mah} ‘what’ and the constructs milailah {מִלַּיְלָה | mi-lāy-lāh} and milel {מִלֵּיל | mi-lêl} ‘from the night.’ This parallelism heightens the sense of urgent inquiry. The English preserves the Hebrew word order and the rhythmic repetition to convey suspense. |