| 3. Linguistic Exegesis The verse opens with the construct chain gever rash {גּבֶר רָשׁ | ge-ber rāš} ‘poor man,’ foregrounding the subject. The conjunction vav {וְ | wə} links the Piel participle osheq {עֹשֵׁק | ō-šēq} ‘oppressing’ to dallim {דַּלִּים | dal-lîm} ‘poor ones,’ creating a parallel nominal clause. This is matched by the simile chain matar sochef {מָטָר סֹחֵף | mā-ṭār sō-ḥêp̄} ‘rain sweeping-away,’ where sochef functions predicatively without a marker for “like,” an elliptic simile common in Hebrew poetry. The existential veein lechem {וְאֵין לָחֶם | wə-ʾên lā-ḥēm} ‘and there is not bread’ presents the catastrophic result. The use of participles in both phrases emphasizes ongoing action and moral force, and the concise parallelism aligns human injustice with destructive natural forces. |