| 14. Linguistic Exegesis The verse opens with the idiomatic question al-mah {עַל־מָה | ʿal-māh} ‘why?’, framing Job’s speech as a rhetorical challenge. The first clause places the verb essa {אֶשָּׂא | ʾes-saʾ} ‘lift, carry’ before its object besari {בְשָׂרִי | bə-śā-rî} ‘my flesh’, then adds the striking prepositional phrase beshinnay {בְשִׁנָּי | bə-šin-nay} ‘in my teeth’, a vivid image of exposing oneself to harm. The second clause is coordinated with vav and parallels the first: venafshi {וְנַפְשִׁי | wə-naf-šî} ‘and my life’ fronts the object, while asim {אָשִׂים | ʾā-śîm} ‘I place’ and bekappi {בְּכַפִּי | bə-kap-pî} ‘in my palm’ express deliberate self-endangerment. The paired clauses form poetic parallelism: “flesh/teeth” aligns with “life/palm,” intensifying the sense of risking one’s whole self; English keeps the rhetorical question while rendering the Hebrew imagery in a comprehensible idiom. |