| 33. Linguistic Exegesis The verse begins with the conjunction vav attached to the possessive phrase u-v'neichem {וּבְנֵיכֶם | wəbnēy-ḵəm} ‘and your children’, which serves as the subject. The Qal imperfect yihyu {יִהְיּוּ | yiḥyū} ‘they will be’ introduces a future state defined by the predicate participle ro'im {רֹעִים | rō·'îm} ‘shepherds’. The locative prepositional phrase ba-midbar {בַּמִּדְבָּר | ba·mid·bār} ‘in the wilderness’ establishes the setting, and the cardinal expression arba-im shanah {אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה | ’ar·bā;’im šānāh} ‘forty years’ marks duration. The coordinate ve-nas'u {וְנָשְׂאוּ | wə·nā·śū} ‘and they will bear’ (vav-consecutive perfect) introduces a resultant action that takes et-znuteichem {אֶת־זְנוּתֵיכֶ֑ם | ’et zənûṯêḵem} ‘your unfaithfulness’ as its object, linking sin to punishment. The final temporal clause ad-tom pigreichem ba-midbar {עַד־תֹּם פִּגְרֵיכֶם בַּמִּדְבָּר | ’ad tōm pix·rêḵem ba·mid·bār} ‘until the end of your corpses in the wilderness’ uses ad plus a noun phrase to delimit the span of judgment. The repetition of ba-midbar frames the narrative, underscoring the wilderness as the locus of Israel’s testing and mortality. |