כִּֽי־גָד֤וֹל מׇרְדֳּכַי֙ בְּבֵ֣ית הַמֶּ֔לֶךְ וְשׇׁמְע֖וֹ הוֹלֵ֣ךְ בְּכׇל־הַמְּדִינ֑וֹת כִּֽי־הָאִ֥ישׁ מׇרְדֳּכַ֖י הוֹלֵ֥ךְ וְגָדֽוֹל׃
For Mordecai was now powerful in the royal palace, and his fame was spreading through all the provinces; this man Mordecai was growing ever more powerful.
(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, by employing a situation-oriented construal as outlined in this introduction, pp. 11–16.)
The expression הָאִישׁ מָרְדֳּכַי (an apposition of two nouns) is fairly unusual: a determined אִישׁ-headed noun phrase, followed by the name of the referent. That pattern occurs about a half-dozen times in the Tanakh (Exod 11:3; Num 12:3; additional citations below). In such an expression, אִישׁ has one of its usual functions: it admits essential background information about a key participant in the previously depicted situation.
As is usual throughout the Scroll of Esther, this referring expression is overloaded (overencoded); the apposed name מָרְדֳּכַי is unnecessary for the audience to fix the referent, and it adds no new information. Scholars of “participant reference in narrative discourse” normally say that such an expression is marked for thematic highlighting; that is, the following information is considered highly salient. (See, e.g., Steven Runge, “Pragmatic Effects of Semantically Redundant Anchoring Expressions in Biblical Hebrew Narrative,” Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 32.2 [2006]: 87–104.) In this book, the rhetorical effect of the continual highlighting is as if almost every sentence is punctuated with an exclamation point. It is a prominent part of this book’s “over the top” literary style.
As for rendering into English, the NJPS rendering ‘the man Mordecai’ is a bit stilted (what I call “Bible English”). The revised rendering uses a demonstrative pronoun, which matches the style adopted for the similar appositions in Judg 17:5, 1 Sam 1:21, and 1 Kgs 11:28—and is more idiomatic.
The expression הָאִישׁ מָרְדֳּכַי (an apposition of two nouns) is fairly unusual: a determined אִישׁ-headed noun phrase, followed by the name of the referent. That pattern occurs about a half-dozen times in the Tanakh (Exod 11:3; Num 12:3; additional citations below). In such an expression, אִישׁ has one of its usual functions: it admits essential background information about a key participant in the previously depicted situation.
As is usual throughout the Scroll of Esther, this referring expression is overloaded (overencoded); the apposed name מָרְדֳּכַי is unnecessary for the audience to fix the referent, and it adds no new information. Scholars of “participant reference in narrative discourse” normally say that such an expression is marked for thematic highlighting; that is, the following information is considered highly salient. (See, e.g., Steven Runge, “Pragmatic Effects of Semantically Redundant Anchoring Expressions in Biblical Hebrew Narrative,” Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages 32.2 [2006]: 87–104.) In this book, the rhetorical effect of the continual highlighting is as if almost every sentence is punctuated with an exclamation point. It is a prominent part of this book’s “over the top” literary style.
As for rendering into English, the NJPS rendering ‘the man Mordecai’ is a bit stilted (what I call “Bible English”). The revised rendering uses a demonstrative pronoun, which matches the style adopted for the similar appositions in Judg 17:5, 1 Sam 1:21, and 1 Kgs 11:28—and is more idiomatic.