Numbers 5:12 - On the noun אִישׁ
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ShareEntry in a commentary on the noun אִישׁ in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible)
דַּבֵּר֙ אֶל־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וְאָמַרְתָּ֖ אֲלֵהֶ֑ם אִ֥ישׁ אִישׁ֙ כִּֽי־תִשְׂטֶ֣ה אִשְׁתּ֔וֹ וּמָעֲלָ֥ה ב֖וֹ מָֽעַל׃
Speak to the Israelite people and say to them:
Regarding anyone* whose wife has gone astray and broken faith with him,
*anyone More precisely, “anyone, without exception,….”
(The above rendering comes from the RJPS translation, an adaptation of the NJPS translation. Before accounting for this rendering, I will analyze the plain sense of the Hebrew term אִישׁ, by employing a situation-oriented construal as outlined in this introduction, pp. 11–16.)
The word אִישׁ is repeated in 19 biblical verses; six of them occur in Numbers, as here. Such repetition אִישׁ אִישׁ imparts a “no exceptions” meaning to the situation that is being depicted, as I explained in my comment to Exod 36:4. For application to constructions like this one, see my comment to Lev 15:2.
Gender is at issue in this passage, but it is not specified by the label. Rather, women are excluded from view by the unspoken more of heterosexual-only marriage.
As for rendering into English, there is no warrant for a gendered rendering of the noun, because the referent’s gender is inferable amyway from the masculine object pronoun and his having a “wife.” The NJPS “If any man’s wife” nowadays overtranslates gender. The revised rendering is more idiomatic. A new footnote then addresses the intensified nuance (as discussed above), which cannot be expressed as elegantly in English as in Hebrew.
The word אִישׁ is repeated in 19 biblical verses; six of them occur in Numbers, as here. Such repetition אִישׁ אִישׁ imparts a “no exceptions” meaning to the situation that is being depicted, as I explained in my comment to Exod 36:4. For application to constructions like this one, see my comment to Lev 15:2.
Gender is at issue in this passage, but it is not specified by the label. Rather, women are excluded from view by the unspoken more of heterosexual-only marriage.
As for rendering into English, there is no warrant for a gendered rendering of the noun, because the referent’s gender is inferable amyway from the masculine object pronoun and his having a “wife.” The NJPS “If any man’s wife” nowadays overtranslates gender. The revised rendering is more idiomatic. A new footnote then addresses the intensified nuance (as discussed above), which cannot be expressed as elegantly in English as in Hebrew.
