On the noun אִישׁ in 2 Samuel 14:16

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 אִישׁ term, by employing a situation-oriented construal as outlined in “Notes on Gender in Translation,” pp. 11–16.)

Here the syntax of the Masoretic text’s seems choppy at first glance. Yet the utterance makes sense as is, as coming from the mouth of an excited and articulate speaker. (On the semantically elliptical nature of the Hebrew infinitive construct when used as the predicate of a nominal clause, see Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar [2017], 173, 350.)

Some interpreters hold that the Tekoite is employing the noun phrase הָאִישׁ to refer to a type—namely anyone who fits the stated criterion: trying to harm her. (On such usage, see Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar [2017] §24.4.4(4) [emphasis in original]: “The article is used generically to designate a class of persons of things that are definite in themselves.”). So Joseph Kara and a similar, now-anonymous commentator (“attributed to Kara”).

Alternatively, the speaker is referring specifically to an aforementioned person in the story, in an underspecified manner. One classic discourse function of הָאִישׁ is to profile its referent in terms of an already depicted situation, as an essential participant. Considerations of salience here point unambiguously to the aforementioned blood-avenger (v. 11; so Rashi’s gloss here: הבא להרוג את בני). As the clan’s delegate to carry out justice, he is integral to the situational frame. His imposing presence is out of view yet nonetheless a given. Referring to him as אִישׁ and describing him as a point of reference is a normal locution (e.g., repeatedly in Gen 43:3–14), rather than repeating the more specific term גֹּאֵל הַדָּם ‘blood avenger’.

Construing הָאִישׁ as a specific reference to an established participant in the discourse—namely the blood avenger—seems the better bet, because such usage is conventional. (See my paper “Explaining the Preference for הָאִישׁ as a Label,” presented to the Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting, 24 Nov 2024.) In contrast, the more usual way to refer to a type would have been a simpler label: the bare noun אִישׁ.

The locution may well be a double entendre—one that quietly applies her immediate story to its larger implications for David’s relation to his estranged son Absalom. At any rate, the individual meaning deserves to be presented as an alternative plain sense construal.

As for rendering into English, the NJPS ‘to deliver his handmaid from the hands of anyone [who would seek to] cut off both me and my son’ construes the speaker as referring to a type. I therefore undertook to add the other likely construal in a footnote.

If הָאִישׁ were rendered as ‘the man’ (the most natural English equivalent for a person who is regarded as a point of reference), few readers would grasp that the intended reference is to the participant last mentioned in v. 11. This is one of the many cases where English does not tolerate as great a distance between co-references as ancient Hebrew did. English idiom therefore calls for repeating the previous label.

And on rendering כַּף as ‘clutches’ (= “control, power, or possession especially of a rapacious or cruel person or an unrelenting force,” Merriam-Webster), see NJPS at Jer 15:21 and Ps 18:1.