| 8. Linguistic Exegesis The verse opens with the waw-consecutive imperfect verb vayomeru {וַיֹּאמְרוּ | va-yo-me-ru} ‘and they said’, signaling direct discourse. It immediately presents the interrogative pronoun mi {מִי | mi} ‘who’. The phrase echad mishivtei yisrael {אֶחָד מִשִּׁבְטֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל | ʾe-ḥāḏ miš-šî-ḇṯê yiś-rā-ʾēl} ‘one of the tribes of Israel’ forms a construct chain linking the numeral to the tribal designation. A relative clause introduced by asher lo-alah {אֲשֶׁר לֹא־עָלָה | ʾă-šer lōʾ-ʿā-lāh} ‘who did not go up’ modifies ‘one’, specifying the absent. The destination appears in the prepositional phrase el-Yahweh ha-mitzpah {אֶל־יְהוָה הַמִּצְפָּה | ʾel-Yə-hō-wāh ha-miẓ-pāh} ‘to the LORD at Mizpah’. A narrative aside begins with ve-hinne lo ba-ish {וְהִנֵּה לֹא־בָא־אִישׁ | wə-hin-nēh lōʾ-bāʾ-ʾîš} ‘and behold, no man came’. The phrase mi-yaveish Gil’ad {מִיָּבֵישׁ גִּלְעָד | mî-ya-ḇê-š gil-ʿāḏ} ‘from Jabesh Gilead’ precedes el-ha-kahal {אֶל־הַקָּהָל | ʾel-ha-qā-hāl} ‘to the assembly’. The repetition of waw-consecutive verbs and the embedding of relative and prepositional phrases echo Hebrew narrative pacing and underscore the absence of representatives from Jabesh Gilead. |