| 7. Linguistic Exegesis The verse consists of two parallel interrogative cola that function as a rebuke: the speaker challenges the addressee’s presumed antiquity and, by implication, his claim to superior wisdom. The opening word harishon {הֲרִאישׁוֹן | hărîʾšôn} ‘the first?’ carries the interrogative heh, fronting “firstness” for emphasis before the subject adam {אָדָם | ʾāḏām} ‘man’. The passive verb tivvaled {תִּוָּלֵד | tiwwālēḏ} ‘were you born’ frames existence as received rather than self-originated. The second colon begins with velifnei {וְלִפְנֵי | wəlip̄nê} ‘and before’, where vav links the next question and often has a disjunctive force in context (“or”), followed by the temporal marker gevaot {גְבָעוֹת | gəḇāʿôṯ} ‘hills’ as a poetic reference point for primeval time. The final cholalta {חוֹלָלְתָּ | ḥôlālətā} ‘were you brought forth’ echoes the first passive verb with a different stem, tightening the parallelism and heightening the irony: the addressee is neither the first human nor older than the ancient landscape. |