1 Kings 2:2 - On the noun אִישׁ
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ByDavid E. S. Stein
מלכים א ב׳:ב׳

אָנֹכִ֣י הֹלֵ֔ךְ בְּדֶ֖רֶךְ כׇּל־הָאָ֑רֶץ וְחָזַקְתָּ֖ וְהָיִ֥יתָֽ לְאִֽישׁ׃

I Kings 2:2

“I am going the way of all the earth; you will be the man in charge—if you act with determination.*

*you will be the man in charge—if you act with determination Or “be strong and show yourself a man.”

(The above rendering and footnote come from the RJPS translation—an adaptation of the NJPS translation—as per a correction in May 2024. Before accounting for the new rendering, I will analyze the plain sense of the Hebrew clause containing אִישׁ, by employing a situation-oriented construal as outlined in this introduction, pp. 11–16.)

The main clause in question is the second one: וְהָיִיתָ לְאִישׁ, lit. ‘and you will become an אִישׁ’. The syntax constrains the noun’s denotation: it must refer to an abstract concept (a kind of person, such as a role) rather than to an individual person as such. And its meaning is a longstanding interpretive crux.

Many dictionaries construe אִישׁ here as indicating manliness, strength, or vigor; i.e., the focus is on intrinsic characteristics. E.g., Simonis 1756; Gesenius 1828; Zorell 1940; Loewenstamm & Blau 1957; HALOT 1967; Gesenius 1987. This is the dominant view in current biblical scholarship, especially in gender studies.

Yet there is a competing view that sees אִישׁ here as profiling a leadership status. Avraham Bedersi’s dictionary (13th c.; published 1865) construes it as שר נכבד ‘esteemed ruler’. Independently, on the basis of the 14th-century-BCE Amarna letters (written in Peripheral Akkadian, and unknown in Bedersi’s day), the late Alan Crown speculated that “it is most likely that the biblical Hebrew word אִישׁ is ... used on occasion with the sense of prince, king, leader or agent for another” (“Short Note,” VT 1974: 110). As one such occasion, Crown pointed to this instance, supporting his construal from the tenor of David’s subsequent instructions in this passage, which focus on governance issues (ibid., 111). And most recently, The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew Revised (DCHR, 2018) classifies this instance under a sense glossed as ‘prince, leader’ (310, §4b).

A situation-oriented approach solves this interpretive crux. It leads to an answer that is closer to the second view. Let us attend first to the conventional meanings of the grammatical constructions that David uses, and then to the pragmatic context of his utterance.

Grammatical considerations: The we-qaṭal inflection of the verb היה almost always describes a specified change of status in someone else’s eyes, when a label for the latter is introduced by the prefixed preposition ל.

In this utterance, our clause is actually part of a larger construction. Two we-qaṭal verbs share the same subject and thus are inflected in the same way: וְחָזַקְתָּ֖ וְהָיִ֥יתָֽ לְאִֽישׁ. This construction is not uncommon; it is a natural one when a speaker is discussing plans, future prospects, or a future course of action (as here). Its first verb expresses a not-yet-satisfied means or condition for the action expressed by the second one, while its second verb expresses the goal or result of the action that is expressed by the first one. (See Biblical Hebrew Reference Grammar [2017] §21.3.1.1.1, p. 194; §40.23.4.2.4, p. 424.) The relationship between the two verbs is:

MEANS so as to achieve GOAL

(or)

CONDITION and thereby RESULT

In short, the normal interpretation of the grammatical construction that David is using is: he is speaking about some pending change of Solomon’s perceived status that is the goal of his “being strong,” or will be its result. And what is the most obvious pending change in his son’s status? It is his becoming king.

Pragmatic context of utterance (i.e., the conditions as David imparts his advice): Solomon’s becoming king is an already highly salient topic. That new situation is on everyone’s mind. This conditions what David says in the following ways.

  • Whenever a speaker is bringing up a salient situation of interest, there is no need to state the obvious. Rather, it is normal for that speaker to depict that situation schematically, and to use an underspecified label to refer to its participant(s). The audience will nonetheless grasp what is meant by automatically applying its powers of inference.
  • When calling attention to a situation that is defined by a key participant, the classic way for an ancient Hebrew speaker to do so is to employ the situating noun, אִישׁ, to refer to that key participant.

  • Here in a predicate, the referent of אִישׁ is not a person but rather an abstract concept: a role or status.

  • The situating noun is normal and expected in this speech context because it is communicatively efficient—it is easy to say, and easy to process in the mind. (In English, the same impulse is behind the slang usage of the Man to refer to the government or officialdom.)
  • In this case, the office of the king is situationally unique. Consequently, David’s audience (namely Solomon) can readily identify it; when David refers to it, the label need not be marked as definite. (Other cases of bare אִישׁ in unique reference and a semantic relation of identification include Ps 37:7; 109:16; Est 6:7.)
  • Because the referent denoted by אִישׁ is highly given, this clause does not contain the new information in the sentence. David’s intonation would not put tonic stress on this word. Rather, his utterance employs אִישׁ as a conceptual point of reference.

In short, David uses אִישׁ as a way to refer to the office of king. His doing so reflects a widely attested preference for the use of the situating noun in cases where there is a high degree of givenness to the referent.

Thus אִישׁ would have been instantly understood by the text’s original audience of native Hebrew speakers as denoting the office of king. (In the Hebrew Bible, אִישׁ only rarely profiles its referent as an adult male human being—that is, in terms of intrinsic qualities. Rather, in thousands of cases, it is used to situate its referent. Here, then, that more prototypical meaning would be applied first.)

I.e., the scholars Bedersi, Crown, and Clines were correct that David is employing אִישׁ to denote the office of ruler. Yet they were incorrect in claiming that “ruler” is a lexical meaning (i.e., dictionary sense) of אִישׁ. Rather, אִישׁ is a shorthand way to refer to a leadership office (only) in contexts of use where that office is highly given (so also, e.g., Gen 43:3; Judg 7:14).

The point of David’s sentence as a whole is that the crown prince needs to be resolute in order to become firmly established as king. There are things that he needs to attend to without flinching, which David proceeds to detail in the remainder of his utterance.

But wait, you may ask, what about the purported “manliness” meaning of אִישׁ here? Its prospects are dim, for the following reasons.

First of all, if a plain sense can be arrived at by relying on a word meaning that is close to its prototypical contribution, there is no cognitive warrant for the audience to consider, let alone adopt, a more derivative sense. Rather, the latter would come into play only if the more conventional sense does not fit. That is just the way that the human mind handles language. (See further Stein 2018: 550–52.)

Second, it is questionable that a “manliness” sense even existed in classical ancient Hebrew. (Granted that it is attested in postbiblical Hebrew.) If it were an established biblical trope, we would expect to find it often in passages where one party clearly urges another to be strong and resolute. But we don’t. Consider the following ten instances:

  • the various injunctions to Joshua upon his assuming control of the nation and its army: חֲזַק וֶאֱמָץ (Deut 31:7, 23; Josh 1:6, 7, 9, 18);
  • Joab’s injunction to his army before battle: חֲזַק וְנִתְחַזְּקָה בְּעַד־עַמֵּנוּ וּבְעַד עָרֵי אֱלֹהֵינוּ (1Chr 19:13);
  • the injunction by an agent of God to King Amaziah before battle: חֲזַק לַמִּלְחָמָה (2Chr 25:8); and
  • David’s parallel charges to Solomon in Chronicles: חֲזַק וֶאֱמָץ (1Chr 22:13; 28:20).

Notably, the expression in question (the we-qaṭal verb היה with אִישׁ as object) is not invoked on occasions where the referent’s participation in the situation is a given. Indeed, in the closest syntactic parallels that at least employ that verbal inflection, another label is employed. The stated goal is to become brave-hearted ones (בְּנֵי־חַיִל):

  • David’s speech in 2 Sam 2:7 (תֶּחֱזַ֣קְנָה יְדֵיכֶ֗ם וִֽהְיוּ֙ לִבְנֵי־חַ֔יִל); and
  • Absalom’s speech in 2 Sam 13:28 (חִזְק֖וּ וִהְי֥וּ לִבְנֵי־חָֽיִל׃).

Finally, compare at 1 Sam 4:9, where the Philistines’ wording is quite similar to David’s here. There, the topic at issue is whether to participate in a pending battle. A nearly prototypical meaning of אִישׁ (more precisely, its plural form) fits readily; therefore, manliness per se is not the plain sense there, either.

Consequently, connotations of masculinity in the usage of אִישׁ seem to be the result of a postbiblical reanalysis of cases like this one, while extending the noun’s increasingly masculine-focused meaning. (On the postbiblical evolution of this noun’s meaning, see Stein 2019.)

As for rendering into English, in my view the NJPS ‘be strong and show yourself a man’ has little evidence to support it. (Yet we retain it in the footnote, out of respect for the original translators’ view.) In the revised rendering, the first clause is now treated as a means or condition. Rendering in terms of “acting with determination” is taken from NJPS at 2 Sam 13:28. As for the second clause, it is now treated as a given goal or result that serves as a cognitive reference point. The clause order is switched according to English idiom, which normally places the communicative focus at the end of a sentence, so that the new (rather than given) information receives that focus. As is usual with אִישׁ, the tricky part is to render its meaning into English idiom. Its new rendering as “the man in charge” relies upon a classic situating function of the noun man in English.