Deuteronomy 1:31 - On the nouns אִישׁ and בֵּן

(The above rendering and footnote come from the RJPS translation, an adaptation of the NJPS translation. Before accounting for these elements, 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.)

Here the situating noun אִישׁ is serving one of its standard discourse functions: to sketch a situation schematically. This particular situation is being invoked because it is stereotypical—and therefore it can help Moses’ audience to better understand the situation under discussion. Because אִישׁ so efficiently evokes situations, it is often used for this purpose—to make quick comparisons (e.g., Exod 33:11; Deut 22:26; Isa 66:13; Zech 4:1; Mal 3:17; Ps 38:15).

The reference here is to a type, rather than to a specific individual. Hence the gender of the stereotypical person in view is not specified by the grammar (other than their being not exclusively womanly). That is, women are not excluded by the grammar. (It is purely for the sake of syntactic gender concord that the subsequent, co-referential possessive pronoun is masculine.)

Now, the act of carrying young children—to keep them from harm—was a quintessentially maternal function (Carol Meyers, “Everyday Life: Women in the Period of the Hebrew Bible,” in Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe, eds. Women’s Bible Commentary, expanded edn. [Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1998]: 251–259; here 255–56). Yet here there is more at stake than simply that act. The larger issue is God’s protection of Israel from danger, as Jeffrey Tigay points out in his JPS Torah commentary volume, ad loc.

And in that context, as a matter of stereotype, women are not excluded so much as superseded. Across the ancient Near East, where the basic social and economic unit was a corporate household that was typically led by a father/husband, he was the exemplar of a protecting figure. For example, the late Tikva Frymer-Kensky wrote that in the Akkadian language (i.e., in Mesopotamia), the very term for “fatherhood” meant protection and intercession (In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture, and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth [New York: Free Press, 1992], p. 165).

In ancient Israel, the father’s classic protective role is highlighted by the terminological fact that persons without a father were classed by the special term יָתוֹם “orphan” even while their mother was alive (Exod 22:23; Ps 109:8; Lam 5:3). Throughout the Bible, children who lack a father are treated as socially vulnerable persons in need of special protection.

Moreover, the paterfamilias was responsible for his household’s intergenerational continuity—which is personified by his heir (likewise typically a male, for Israelite society was patrilocal). A young heir would thus be expected to receive solicitous special attention—as exemplified here by the act of carrying.

The reader might wonder why, if a (male) householder was indeed the intended denotation of אִישׁ in this instance, a more specific label was not employed, such as בַּעַל־הַבַּיִת (NJPS: “owner of the house”). The answer is that the role of householder was so central to Israelite society, and thus so familiar to the audience, that it could be reliably evoked with the simpler term אִישׁ, in a sketch of a situation that obviously involved a householder. This explains why in the Bible אִישׁ denotes a householder in roughly twenty times as many instances as does בַּעַל־הַבַּיִת.

In short, the present verse’s wording would reliably evoke a male-gendered stereotypical image in the ancient audience’s mind.

As for the translation, NJPS has not been altered in this instance. Although in general my commentary is devoted to cases where RJPS has significantly departed from the NJPS base translation, I am making an exception here—to explain why I did not follow the lead of other “gender-sensitive” translations that have cast this case in gender-neutral terms, e.g., NRSVue: “just as one carries a child.”