| 13. Linguistic Exegesis The verse employs synonymous parallelism characteristic of Hebrew poetry. The construct chain retson melakhim {רְצוֹן מְלָכִים | rĕ-ṣōn mə-lā-khîm} ‘delight of kings’ links retson {רְצוֹן | rĕ-ṣōn} ‘delight’ and melakhim {מְלָכִים | mə-lā-khîm} ‘kings.’ Siftei-tzedek {שִׂפְתֵי־צֶדֶק | sĭp̄-tê-ṣe-ḏeq} ‘lips of righteousness’ forms a parallel construct, emphasizing just speech. The waw participle ve-dober {וְדֹבֵר | wə-dō-ḇēr} ‘and one who speaks’ together with the substantive adjective yesharim {יְשָׁרִים | yĕ-shā-rîm} ‘upright things’ functions as a nominal clause. The imperfect verb ye’ehav {יֶאֱהָב | yeʾ-hā-ḇ} ‘he will be loved’ predicts the positive outcome of moral speech. English preserves the parallel structure by balancing the nominal construct and participial clause in two related clauses. |