that the east wind withers.
The Masoretic Text, sheqadmat shalaf yavesh, is opaque. One might
translate it as “before it is pulled up it dries out,” but the (Aramaic?) form
of the first word is peculiar, and the grammar of the second word (it shows the
form of an active transitive verb) is wrong. This translation follows an
emendation first proposed by Hermann Gunkel, sheqadim tishdof. (Robert
Alter, The Hebrew Bible, 3 vols. [New York: W. W. Norton & Company,
2019], 3:302)
