| 8. Linguistic Exegesis The verse employs antithetical parallelism, contrasting a negative jussive clause with its consequence and a positive imperative with its outcome. The instruction begins with al {אַל | ʾal} ‘do not’ plus the Hiphil jussive tokhach {תּוֹכַח | tō·ḵaḥ} ‘rebuke’ targeted at letz {לֵץ | lêṣ} ‘mocker’. The conjunction pen {פֶּן | pen} ‘lest’ introduces the result clause yisna’ekha {יִשְׂנָאֶךָ | yiśnāʾēḵā} ‘he will hate you’. The second half starts with the Hiphil imperative hokhach {הוֹכַח | hō·ḵaḥ} ‘rebuke’ followed by the prepositional phrase le-chakham {לְחָכָם | lə·ḥā·ḵām} ‘to a wise one’. The coordinating wə {וְ | wə} with ye’ehavekha {יֶאֱהָבֶךָ | ye·ʾə·hā·ḇê·ḵā} ‘and he will love you’ mirrors the warning structure, reinforcing that the same act of correction yields opposite responses based on each recipient’s disposition. |