| 26. Linguistic Exegesis The verse presents a toponymic enumeration introduced by successive vav conjunctions, starting with ve’alammelekh {וְאַֽלַמֶּ֥לֶךְ | wə-ʾă-lam-me-leḵ} ‘and Alammelek’, ve’amad {וְעַמְעָ֖ד | wə-ʿam-ʿāḏ} ‘and Amad’, and u’mishal {וּמִשְׁאָ֑ל | u-mi-šä-’āl} ‘and Mishal’. The verb u’pāga‘ {וּפָגַ֤ע | u-pā-ğa‘} ‘and reached/touched’ introduces directional clauses marked by the prepositional phrase be’karmel {בְּכַרְמֶל֙ | bə-ḵar-mel} ‘at Carmel’. The noun hayyāmah {הַיָּ֔מָּה | hay-yā-māh} ‘the sea’ features the prefixed directional he to indicate westward orientation. Finally, u’veshihor {וּבְשִׁיח֖וֹר | u-ve-ši-hor} ‘and at Shihor’ combined with livnāt {לִבְנָֽת | liv-nāt} ‘Libnath’ completes the boundary description. The repeated vav conjunctions and compound place-name phrases reflect the standard Israelite territorial delimitation pattern. |