וַיַּרְא־גַּ֘עַל֮ אֶת־הָעָם֒ וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֶל־זְבֻ֔ל הִנֵּה־עָ֣ם יוֹרֵ֔ד מֵרָאשֵׁ֖י הֶהָרִ֑ים וַיֹּ֤אמֶר אֵלָיו֙ זְבֻ֔ל אֵ֣ת צֵ֧ל הֶהָרִ֛ים אַתָּ֥ה רֹאֶ֖ה כָּאֲנָשִֽׁים׃
Gaal saw the troops and said to Zebul, “Look, troops are coming down from the hilltops!” But Zebul said to him, “The shadows of the hills look to you like people.”
(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 containing אִישׁ — or in this case, its plural אֲנָשִׁים.)
If gender were at issue, the speaker would have used a more specific (masculine) label such as גְּבָרִים. By employing the semantically vague term אֲנָשִׁים that (from its underlying ontology) denotes human beings when contrasted with the rest of the natural world, the speaker is drawing a purposeful contrast between inanimate shadows (shifting in the breeze) and generic human beings.
As for rendering into English, the NJPS ‘men’ is best understood as a now-archaic generic usage. The revised rendering, which matches that of NRSV and CEV, best expresses the speaker’s apparently generic (minimizing) intent.