דַּבְּרוּ֙ אֶל־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל וַאֲמַרְתֶּ֖ם אֲלֵהֶ֑ם אִ֣ישׁ אִ֗ישׁ כִּ֤י יִהְיֶה֙ זָ֣ב מִבְּשָׂר֔וֹ זוֹב֖וֹ טָמֵ֥א הֽוּא׃
Speak to the Israelite people and say to them:
When any man at all has a discharge issuing from his member, he is impure.
(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, by employing a situation-oriented construal as outlined in this introduction, pp. 11–16.)
This is one of a set of 19 instances where (singular, absolute) אִישׁ is repeated, all of them in Priestly passages. The repetition אִישׁ אִישׁ imparts a “no exceptions” meaning to the situation that is being depicted, as I explained at the first instance, Exodus 36:4; see my comment there.
Usually the noun phrase אִישׁ אִישׁ introduces a new situation of interest by focusing on its key participant, and then the discourse builds its depiction of the situation around that participant. Indeed, the majority of cases follow or resemble one of two basic patterns:
- אִישׁ אִישׁ כִּי (followed by a yiqṭol-verb phrase that conditions the situation) = Lev 15:2; 24:15; Num 5:12; 9:10.
- אִישׁ אִישׁ מִבֵּית יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר (followed by a yiqṭol-verb phrase that conditions the situation) = Lev 17:3; Ezek 14:4.
Variations on those patterns are found in Lev 17:8, 10, 13; 20:2; 22:18; 18:6; 20:9; 22:4; Ezek 14:7. And a third set of usages, in which אִישׁ אִישׁ describes a thoroughgoing manner of distribution, are found in Exod 36:4; Num 1:4; 4:19, 49.
The license for the emphatic wording may lie in their being used to depict private situations that could remain hidden from the rest of the community, and thus the community’s interest might be easily downplayed. Meanwhile, the consequences of disregarding the stated dicta are serious—even deadly—although in itself that is not a sufficient condition to warrant a doubling of אִישׁ.
Many of the paired אִישׁ terms also have a text-structuring role, organizing passages into a pattern of sections. According to Moshe Kline’s research on the tabular nature of the Torah’s literary structure, 12 of the אִישׁ pairs serve to structure certain textual sections. See Kline, “The Structured Torah” (2019), purl.org/stein/kline-torah.
Several of the repetitions of אִישׁ occur in a construction like the one on this verse, being marked for announcing a new topic via the syntactic device known as fronted dislocation (also called casus pendens or left dislocation).
As for rendering into English, the NJPS “anyone” does not express the emphatic, across-the-board nature of the claim that is conveyed by the phrase אִישׁ אִישׁ. The revised rendering makes that discourse function explicit.