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.