| 21. Linguistic Exegesis The verse begins with the causal conjunction ki {כִּי | kî}, introducing the reason. A compound subject of two Qal participles—sove {סֹבֵא | sô-wê} and ve-zolel {וְזוֹלֵל | wə-zō-lêl}—joined by waw denotes habitual excess. The Nifal imperfect yivăresh {יִוָּרֵשׁ | yiv-vā-rēš} conveys a passive outcome “will become poor.” The coordinating waw in u-kera‘im {וּקְרָעִים | u-qer-ā‘îm} leads to a second clause where numah {נוּמָה | nū-mā} functions as the subject of the Hiphil imperfect talbish {תַּלְבִּישׁ | tal-bîš}, personifying drowsiness as causing garments of rags. The parallelism—excess → poverty; lethargy → destitution—reflects the cause-and-effect pattern of Hebrew wisdom literature. In English, participles are rendered as substantive nouns or gerunds, the passive Nifal is rendered actively to preserve nuance, and an indefinite subject (“one” or “them”) is supplied to match the generic Hebrew. |