On the noun אִישׁ in Genesis 13:8

(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—in this case, its plural form—by employing a situation-oriented construal as outlined in this introduction, pp. 11–16.)

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Here the nouns אֲנָשִׁים and אַחִים appear in apposition. Such a pairing of these nouns (whether plural or singular) is otherwise un­attested. Rashi glosses the combined phrase as קְרוֹבִים ‘relatives, kinsmen’. However, אַחִים ‘brothers, kin’ alone would convey that idea of kin­ship—as in Gen 42:13, in which Joseph’s brothers describe themselves as brothers by saying simply אַחִים אֲנַחְנוּ. Hence Rashi does not account for why Abram went to the trouble to pointedly use the term אֲנָשִׁים, as well.

Some translators construe the presence of אֲנָשִׁים as indicating intensification: ‘close relatives’ (TNIV); ‘close kin’ (Chaim Stern). Apparently this meaning was derived from the context. Yet I know of no linguistic motivation that would have enabled Lot to derive such a meaning from the ordinary usage of our noun. Given that all of the other cases of אִישׁ-headed apposition can be readily explained in situational terms, that same approach is worth exploring here.

Prototypically, אֲנָשִׁים is used to refer to a set of participants in the depicted situation, in terms of that situation. That is precisely what Abram is doing here. He has already introduced a situation into the discourse, namely מְרִיבָה ‘strife’. Conceptually speaking, such a situation necessarily has two participants. Now he refers to those participants in conventional terms: as אֲנָשִׁים. He is predicating about them by classifying them, and then applying that role to himself and his nephew. In context, then, the verbless clause אֲנָשִׁים אַחִים אֲנָחְנוּ means, “In this case, we—the parties involved [in the aforementioned situation]—are kin (who shouldn’t be at odds).”

Because it is a conventional application of אִישׁ, that situational construal of אֲנָשִׁים would have come readily and reliably to the audience’s mind. For that reason, and because it yields a coherent and informative text, it must be the plain sense of this passage.

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As for rendering into English, the NJPS ‘kinsmen’ for אֲנָשִׁים אַחִים assigns no translation value to אֲנָשִׁים. As noted above, however, the noun אֲנָשִׁים evokes a situated awareness—which in an idiomatic translation, in the context of Abram’s curt yet decisive statement, needs to be expressed much more succinctly in English than I have done above. The added phrase ‘after all’ expresses the basic idea by subtly alluding to the situation in question, i.e., the circumstances.