וַיָּבֹ֙אוּ֙ כׇּל־הַ֣חֲכָמִ֔ים הָעֹשִׂ֕ים אֵ֖ת כׇּל־מְלֶ֣אכֶת הַקֹּ֑דֶשׁ אִֽישׁ־אִ֥ישׁ מִמְּלַאכְתּ֖וֹ אֲשֶׁר־הֵ֥מָּה עֹשִֽׂים׃
every single one of the artisans who were engaged in the tasks of the sanctuary came from the task in which they were engaged
(The above rendering comes from the RJPS translation—an adaptation of the NJPS translation—as modified in May 2024. 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.)
This is the first of 20 instances where אִישׁ is repeated, all of them in Priestly passages (the others are in Leviticus, Numbers, and Ezekiel). While אִישׁ by itself has its own situating function, the repetition אִישׁ אִישׁ imparts a “no exceptions” meaning to the situation that is being depicted, as I shall explain shortly.
In order to understand the meaning of the repetition, we must first recognize the meaning of just one instance of אִישׁ. Here, it involves distribution. Distribution is the formal name (in grammar and linguistics) for the concept that a specified action is carried out by individual members of a set, across the entire set, without regard to the identity of the individuals involved. Normally, the distributive manner of action of a plural verb like וַיָּבֹאוּ ‘they came’ would expressed by the expression אִישׁ מִמְּלַאכְתּוֹ. That is, it would employ one instance of the bare singular אִישׁ together with a referring expression for some entity (here: מְלָאכָה ‘task’) that is linked with אִישׁ via a possessive suffix. (Such constructions are conventional, appearing nearly three hundred times in the Bible. They mark the manner of action as being distributive by counterposing the plural grammatical number on the verb with the singular number on אִישׁ.)
The meaning of the doubling of אִישׁ differs a bit from that of other doubled nouns. The others indicate a more intense version of the entity that is denoted by a singleton. Hence: זָהָב זָהָב = ‘pure gold’ (2 Kgs 25:15); גֵּבִים גֵּבִים = ‘full of pools’ (2 Kgs 3:16).
In contrast, as a situating noun, אִישׁ prototypically works mainly on the discourse level of communication, to position its referent in the depicted situation. Therefore the repetition אִישׁ אִישׁ is best understood as making an issue of the nature of its referent’s participation in that situation. Here, because אִישׁ is being used to depict the manner of participation (= distribution), the intensification expressed is along that dimension. Lest the narrator’s audience imagine that כׇּל ‘all’ means “most” or “nearly all” (as it often does), the repeated word makes a point of the fact that participation was across the board.
The point of this passage (vv. 2–5) is that every artisan—regardless of their particular craft—had been given more than enough material to work with. Via the noun phrase אִישׁ אִישׁ, the narration goes out of its way to underscore that this situation applied to all of them without exception. The artisans showed up to report that the surplus was total and complete. In every category. (Notice how my redundant wording makes that point emphatically?)
In much the same way, the English language regularly employs pronoun phrases with this same discourse function: ‘every single one’, or ‘each and every’ or ‘any and every’, or (in a case of negation) ‘not a single solitary one’. Although these phrases are not strict repetitions, they are likewise redundant on the informational level—like the repetition in Hebrew.
As for rendering into English, the NJPS “all the artisans … came, each from the task upon which he was engaged” not only uses a pronoun that nowadays is misleadingly masculine, but also does not express the emphatic, across-the-board nature of the claim that is conveyed by the phrase אִישׁ אִישׁ. The revised rendering employs a gender-inclusive pronoun and English idiom while making the discourse function explicit.