Numbers 32:14 - On the noun אֲנָשִׁים

(The above rendering and footnote come from the RJPS translation, an adaptation of the NJPS translation, according to a modification proposed for late 2024. Before accounting for this rendering, I will analyze the plain sense of the Hebrew term containing אִישׁ—in this case, its plural form אֲנָשִׁים—by employing a situation-oriented construal as outlined in this document, pp. 11–16.)

This is the only place in the Tanakh where the noun תַּרְבּוּת appears, and the syntax is unusual: the phrase תַּרְבּוּת אֲנָשִׁים חַטָּאִים is not clearly connected to what precedes it or follows it. These aspects have prompted discrepant views as to whom (or what) the phrase in question is describing, and whether אֲנָשִׁים חַטָּאִים refers to the same body as תַּרְבּוּת or a different one.

Samson R. Hirsch represents one view, paraphrasing Moses’ statement as follows: אתם מראים את עצמכם כ״תרבות אנשים חטאים״, בנים שגודלו על ידי אנשים חוטאים “You are showing yourselves to be … offspring raised by sinful men.” That is, תַּרְבּוּת refers to the addressees, while אֲנָשִׁים חַטָּאִים refers to the fathers (אֲבֹתֵיכֶם), a famously disobedient generation. (The Accordance syntax module supervised by Robert Holmstedt construes the verse similarly.) In contrast, others, such as Lénart de Regt and Ernst Wendland in the UBS Translator’s Handbook, insist that אֲנָשִׁים חַטָּאִים refers to Moses’ addressees and not to their fathers.

Upon reflection, I think that the expression אֲנָשִׁים חַטָּאִים refers to neither party directly. Rather, it refers to an abstract category—a certain type of person that Moses is holding up for opprobrium—and he is implying that both generations are now of this unsavory type. Moses uses the phrase תַּרְבּוּת אֲנָשִׁים חַטָּאִים to comment indirectly on the situation: An increase in the ranks of troublemakers! (The idea of increase seems inherent in תַּרְבּוּת, based on its root.) That the referring expression אֲנָשִׁים חַטָּאִים is pointing to the two generations under discussion is an implication that is fueled by considerations of saliency.

As Baruch Levine notes in his Anchor Bible commentary, the morphology of the adjective חַטָּאִים “characterizes the subject as repeatedly or regularly committing sinful acts.” Yet Moses does not simply use that adjective as a label. Rather, he asserts that the situation under discussion is defined in part by the presence of such sinners. He does so by employing the head noun אֲנָשִׁים to label its referent (namely, the category of chronic sinners) as being essential for grasping the depicted situation. This is a classic function of the situating noun.

[For the first printing of RJPS, I had thought that תַּרְבּוּת was referring to the addressees (as per the NJPS construal; see below), while אֲנָשִׁים referred to the militia in the earlier generation—and that both of these nested references were contextually unique. On that view, neither of the nouns would need a determiner in order for the audience to be able to identify its referent. On that basis, I had rendered the phrase in question as “the breed of those sinners.”]

As for rendering into English, the NJPS rendering ‘a breed of sinful men’ construes the phrase in question as being in apposition with “you”—and not with “your fathers.” This is defensible, but it does not reflect what I think is really being said (a predication about both generations). The best course at this point is probably to restore NJPS, while adding a footnote with an alternative rendering.