(The above rendering is 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 referring expression under study is אֲנָשִׁים. Being the situating noun, it is used to put attention on a situation of interest, while succinctly depicting that situation schematically. Its use calls attention to the situation—here, to the creation of an agency arrangement, using a verb of agency: וַיִּפָּקְדוּ.
The agents in question are profiled simply as participants in that situation, which is the most efficient way to establish the new situation in the audience’s mind and their place in it. That is, by making clear that they are the
essential participants for grasping the depicted situation (אֲנָשִׁים), their role as the community’s agents is implied; it does not need a more specific label to be understood. (Compare
my comment at Gen 12:20.)
Gender is not at issue. There are no grounds for rendering in gendered terms.
As for rendering into English, the NJPS “men” is nowadays construed as a male term.
In this context, the closest English equivalent to the Hebrew situating noun appears to be a role term. Such a rendering approach is analogous to the standard English rendering of אִישׁ in marital contexts as “husband.” Although role terms operate on the informational level (rather than the discourse level), they nonetheless indirectly evoke a situation, while characterizing the relationship between its participants. This generalization is true of “commissioners” in the present context.
In recasting situational participation in terms of a relational role, I am not claiming that אֲנָשִׁים means “commissioners” in Biblical Hebrew, merely that it is the best rendering in idiomatic English.
