וְהִנֵּ֣ה ׀ אִ֣ישׁ זָקֵ֗ן בָּ֣א מִֽן־מַעֲשֵׂ֤הוּ מִן־הַשָּׂדֶה֙ בָּעֶ֔רֶב וְהָאִישׁ֙ מֵהַ֣ר אֶפְרַ֔יִם וְהוּא־גָ֖ר בַּגִּבְעָ֑ה וְאַנְשֵׁ֥י הַמָּק֖וֹם בְּנֵ֥י יְמִינִֽי׃
In the evening, an old man came along from his property outside the town. (This man hailed from the hill country of Ephraim and resided at Gibeah, where the locals were Benjaminites.)
(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.)
The Hebrew term is vague, meaning “salient affiliates of the place”; the nature of the affiliation is unspecified. In context, the term is understood by convention to denote the “native” inhabitants, in contrast to this property owner as a relative newcomer.
As for rendering into English, the NJPS ‘townspeople’ seems to miss the mark, since the implied contrast is not between town and rural, or one town and another, but rather between distant and local. The new rendering is vague (similar to the Hebrew).