| 16. Linguistic Exegesis The verse opens with the construct chain eshet {אֵשֶׁת | ʾešet} ‘woman’ immediately followed by chen {חֵן | ḥên} ‘favor’, establishing a direct link between character trait and outcome. The Qal imperfect titmôḵ {תִּתְמֹךְ | titmôḵ} indicates habitual action in the first line. The adversative vav prefixed to aritsim {עָרִיצִים | ʼăriyṣîm} ‘violent men’ introduces a contrasting parallel clause, where the second Qal imperfect yitməḵû {יִתְמְכוּ | yitməḵû} mirrors the verb pattern to maintain structural balance. The maqqef in eshet-chen and yitməḵû-ʼôšer binds construct and verb-object pairs tightly, reinforcing the causal relationship between virtue and reward in this antithetic parallelism. |