Deuteronomy 24:11 - On the noun אִישׁ

(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 containing אִישׁ by employing a situation-oriented construal as outlined in this introduction, pp. 11–16.)

Prototypically, the label אִישׁ profiles its referent in terms of the depicted situation; that is, it relates the depicted situation’s key participant to that situation. Such is its function here.

More precisely, here the noun phrase הָאִישׁ profiles its referent in terms of the previously depicted situation—referring to the same party who has been the topic until now. In the process, אִישׁ is a changed label, substituted for this participant’s primary referring expression רֵעַ in verse 10. Indeed, in Biblical Hebrew, אִישׁ is a standard way to label a participant when elaborating upon the situation of interest. (This preference for אִישׁ is best explained by its being a situating noun rather than an ordinary sortal noun.)

By their very nature, almost all so-called male personal nouns (such as אִישׁ) implicitly include women when they are used to make reference to a type in the absence of gender contrast, as here. Subsequent co-references are masculine simply for the sake of gender concord; the scope of reference remains gender inclusive. (This feature of the language is demonstrated by biblical narratives in which the characters confirm such inclusion by their words and actions; Stein 2008, Stein 2013.) Thus women are in view by default unless the topic under discussion is restricted to men by convention, or if such a restriction is explicitly stated.

The ancient Israelite audience knew of women as debtors (cf. 24:17b; 2 Kings 4:1), and gender is not at issue in this law.

In short, we lack clear evidence that the party involved would have been construed as exclusively male. Women are not definitely excluded from view, as would be necessary for a gendered English rendering.

As for rendering into English, there is no warrant for rendering in gendered terms. The NJPS “man” is nowadays construed as gendered. The revised rendering is not.

Rendering as “party” is not to claim that this is the meaning of אִישׁ per se, but rather that in the context of a financial transaction, this role term is nowadays the closest gender-inclusive English equivalent to the Hebrew situating noun. See further my comment at Josh 10:24.