| 35. Linguistic Exegesis The verse opens with the construct retson melech {רְצוֹן־מֶלֶךְ | rə-ṣōn me-leḵ} ‘favor of a king,’ which functions as the subject. The beneficiary is marked by the prepositional phrase le-eved maskil {לְעֶבֶד מַשְׂכִּיל | lə-ʿe-veḏ mas-kîl} ‘to a discerning servant,’ where the Hiphil participle maskil conveys active insight. The adversative conjunction ve- {וְ | wə-} introduces evrato tihyeh {עֶבְרָתוֹ תִּהְיֶה | ʿe-vrā-ṯō tī-ḥyēh} ‘but his wrath will be,’ with the imperfect verb indicating a certain outcome. The final participle mevish {מֵבִישׁ | mē-wī-š} ‘one who causes shame’ completes the parallelism, contrasting the reward for wisdom with the penalty for disgrace. |