---
title: Nehemiah 4:3 (JPS 1917) — But we made our prayer unto our God, and set a watch against them da… · tree and pragmatics
description: But we made our prayer unto our God, and set a watch against them day and night, because of them. Who acts: we, our. Nehemiah 4:3 in JPS 1917 with its dependency tree and the pragmatics of every clause.
---

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# Nehemiah 4:3 · JPS 1917

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But we made our prayer unto our God, and set a watch against them day and night, because of them.

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**Who acts:** we, our · **What happens:** make, set, pray · **To what, where:** prayer, watch

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This is Nehemiah 4:3 · JPS 1917 in the English of the Jewish Publication Society's 1917 translation, from Mova's open Bible corpus. The page gives the sentence's syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies, parsed by Mova and checked by a teacher model — and its pragmatics clause by clause: who acts (we, our), what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it. The original of the verse links back to its own tree and to the Targum.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = jps:NEH:85
# text = But we made our prayer unto our God, and set a watch against them day and night, because of them.
1	But	but	CCONJ	CC	_	3	cc	_	_
2	we	we	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Number=Plur|Person=1|PronType=Prs	3	nsubj	_	_
3	made	make	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	0	root	_	_
4	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	5	nmod:poss	_	_
5	prayer	prayer	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	3	obj	_	_
6	unto	unto	ADP	IN	_	8	case	_	_
7	our	our	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=1|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	8	nmod:poss	_	_
8	God	God	PROPN	NNP	Number=Sing	3	obl	_	_
9	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	11	punct	_	_
10	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	11	cc	_	_
11	set	set	VERB	VBD	Mood=Ind|Number=Plur|Person=1|Tense=Past|VerbForm=Fin	3	conj	_	_
12	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	13	det	_	_
13	watch	watch	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obj	_	_
14	against	against	ADP	IN	_	15	case	_	_
15	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	_
16	day	day	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	11	obl:unmarked	_	_
17	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	18	cc	_	_
18	night	night	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	16	conj	_	_
19	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	22	punct	_	_
20	because	because	ADP	IN	ExtPos=ADP	22	case	_	_
21	of	of	ADP	IN	_	20	fixed	_	_
22	them	they	PRON	PRP	Case=Acc|Number=Plur|Person=3|PronType=Prs	11	obl	_	_
23	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	3	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

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- form: statement
- act: narrate
- voice: narrator
- polarity: none
- teacher: kept the draft

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| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **make** | past | we | our prayer |  |  |  | unto our God | vn build-26.1-1 «NP V NP»: agent=Agent prayer=Product |
| 2 | **set** | past | we *not said here* | a watch |  |  | day | against Sanballat; because Sanballat | vn put-9.1-2 «NP V NP PP.destination»: agent=Agent watch=Theme against they=Destination |
| 3 | **pray** |  | our |  |  |  |  |  | nom prayer «act intransitive»: poss=agent |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

## The Hebrew of this verse {#hebrew}

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וַנִּתְפַּלֵּ֖ל אֶל־אֱלֹהֵ֑ינוּ וַנַּעֲמִ֨יד מִשְׁמָ֧ר עֲלֵיהֶ֛ם יוֹמָ֥ם וָלַ֖יְלָה מִפְּנֵיהֶֽם׃

[Nehemiah 4:3: the Hebrew tree, its pragmatics →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/ketuvim/NEH.4.3/)

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**Source.** The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text, Jewish Publication Society, 1917, from eBible.org: public domain. Sentence `jps:NEH:85` of Mova's parse database.

**The tree and the speech act** come from Mova's cycle: the small model's draft, read by a large model as teacher, passed by Mova's gates (Elamur Cosmic License). **The frames** are read from the tree by Mova's frames reader (`prag`) when this page is built, the chapter read in order, so a pronoun may be resolved from an earlier sentence of the chapter.

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