| 27. Linguistic Exegesis The proverb uses two parallel participial clauses to express cause and retributive effect. The first clause begins with koreh {כֹּרֶה | kôrê} ‘one who digs’ followed by its object shachat {שַּׁחַת | šaḥaṯ} ‘pit’, leading to the imperfect yippol {יִפֹּל | yippōl} ‘will fall’, establishing a protasis-apodosis pattern. The coordinating conjunction in ve-golel {וְגֹלֵל | wə-gōlêl} ‘and rolls’ introduces a second parallel action with the participle governing even {אֶבֶן | ʾeḇen} ‘stone’, culminating in tashuv {תָּשׁוּב | tāšûwḇ} ‘it will return’. The feminine suffix in bah {בָּהּ | băh} aligns with tashuv’s feminine subject, highlighting the rebound of the actor’s own deed. English renders the Hebrew participles as finite clauses and retains syntactic balance to mirror the original parallelism. |