The chant of the cruel ones He
answered. The received text is enigmatic here. Attempts to render the
concluding verb as “has silenced” are questionable: yaʿaneh as it stands
means “answer,” and a revocalization as yeʿaneh doesn’t work because
that verb means “afflict,” not “silence,” and also requires a human object.
Perhaps the “chant” is a battle chant, or a triumphal song. (Robert Alter, The
Hebrew Bible, 3 vols. [New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019], 2:699)
