| 13. Linguistic Exegesis The verse presents two parallel cola that intensify Job’s isolation. The first colon fronts the object akhay {אַ֭חַי | ʾaḥay} ‘my brothers’ and immediately anchors the separation with the prepositional phrase me’alay {מֵעָלַ֣י | mēʿālay} ‘from upon me,’ before the verb hirchiq {הִרְחִ֑יק | hirḥîq} supplies the action; the third person singular subject is implicit and, in the surrounding discourse, refers to God as the one behind Job’s losses. The second colon is joined with vav and moves to a second relational circle, veyod‘ay {וְ֝יֹדְעַ֗י | wə-yōḏəʿay} ‘and my acquaintances,’ creating a balanced parallel. The particle akh {אַךְ | ʾaḵ} functions as an emphatic limiter/asserter, heightening the force of the following predicate zaru {זָרוּ | zārû} ‘they have become strangers/estranged,’ and the final mimmeni {מִמֶּֽנִּי | mimmennî} ‘from me’ closes both the syntax and the sense of social expulsion. English keeps the parallelism (“brothers…acquaintances”) and renders the implicit subject as “He” to reflect the Hebrew’s unexpressed agent while preserving the poetic terseness. |