| 24. Linguistic Exegesis The verse opens with the participle gozel {גּוֹזֵ֤ל | gōzēl} ‘one who robs’, establishing a protasis without an explicit conditional marker to express a universal moral principle. It takes the objects aviv {אָ֘בִ֤יו | ăvîv} ‘his father’ and v’imo {וְאִמּ֗וֹ | wə’immô} ‘and his mother’, specifying familial violation. The conjunctive participle v’omer {וְאֹמֵ֥ר | wə’ōmêr} ‘and saying’ introduces the offender’s rationalization, followed by the verbless clause ein-pasha {אֵֽין־פָּ֑שַׁע | ’ên-pāšā‘} ‘there is no offense’, which downplays wrongdoing. In the apodosis chaver hu {חָבֵ֥ר ה֝֗וּא | ḥāvēr hū’} ‘he is a companion’, the pronoun hu emphasizes identity, and the prepositional phrase lish mashchit {לְאִ֣ישׁ מַשְׁחִֽית | lə’îš māšḥîṯ} ‘to a man destroying’ conveys moral association. The English translation renders Hebrew participles as relative clauses (“who robs,” “and claims”), converts the verbless clause into direct speech, and renders lamed + noun as “like a friend of” to express associative likeness. |