| 4. Linguistic Exegesis The verse opens with the heading ve’eleh {וְאֵ֖לֶּה | wə-ʾêl-leh} ‘and these’, introducing a list immediately specified by the possessed noun shemotam {שְׁמוֹתָ֑ם | šə-mō-ṯām} ‘their names’. The prepositional phrase le-matteh {לְמַטֵּ֣ה | lə-mat-tê} ‘for tribe’ defines the scope of the enumeration. Reuben {רְאוּבֵ֔ן | rə-ʾū-bên} ‘Reuben’ heads a construct chain with Shammua {שַׁמּ֖וּעַ | šam-mū-ʼa} ‘Shammua’, bound by maqqef to the genitive expression ben-zakkur {בֶּן־זַכּֽוּר | ben-za-kkūr} ‘son of Zakkur’. This left-branching nominal construct encodes genealogical descent, and the Hebrew maqqef preserves the unity of the family identifier. The translation employs a colon after “names” to mirror the Hebrew etnachta and maintain the list’s syntactic prominence. |