On the noun אִישׁ in Judges 7:14

(The above rendering comes from the RJPS translation, an adaptation of the NJPS translation. In this case, a footnote has been introduced with an alternative rendering: Israel’s man in charge. Before accounting for this new rendering, I will analyze the plain sense of the Hebrew term containing אִישׁ.)

This is the only biblical instance where the expression אִישׁ יִשְׂרָאֵל is apposed to a name and used for characterization (rather than for reference). Like any construct phrase, it relies upon considerations of salience for the meaning that it evokes. Two interpretations have been proffered by scholars. The NJPS rendering the Israelite follows the view of Ramban (or Naḥmanides, the 13th-century commentator) and of Gesenius (19th-century lexicographer and grammarian). Yet in this case, the construal by Radak (or Kimḥi, in his dictionary entry on אִישׁ) is at least as compelling: גדול ישראל וראשו ‘an eminence in Israel and its head’. For if the speaker meant to refer to Gideon’s national affiliation, we would have expected instead the gentilic הַיִּשְׂרְאֵלִי ‘the Israelite’, as in Lev 24:10; 2 Sam 17:25; cf. Gen 14:13; 38:1–2. Because no two expressions in a language are exactly synonymous, אִישׁ יִשְׂרָאֵל arguably means something else besides the Israelite.

The proper starting point for analysis is the prototypical meaning of אִישׁ, which is part of the basic vocabulary for depicting situations; it labels an essential participant in a situation as such. Here, by employing the expression in question as a characterization, the speaker seems to be conveying that Gideon occupies a key slot in the salient situation, without his having a formal leadership role. He is identified situationally as being the driving force in the Israelite opposition to Midian.

As for rendering into English, the above meaning is conveyed in the new footnote: Israel’s man in charge properly indicates the situation-defining aspect without connoting a formal leadership role. Furthermore, it would be a natural term used by one soldier in speaking to another. Both factors make it a better semantic fit than an earlier candidate, operative (such as someone sent by the CIA on a surreptitious mission to upset a hostile army), which is a more formal role term. As it happens, the expression man in charge [of] is used three times elsewhere in NJPS, so it is clearly compatible with this idiomatic translation and its register. (Meanwhile, the fact that women are not in view is self-evident from the military setting.)