On the noun אִישׁ in Judges 20:12

(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 — or in this case, its plural אֲנָשִׁים.)

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Here אֲנָשִׁים plays its usual situating function on the discourse level: it marks its referent as essential for grasping the newly depicted situation. (Likewise, English classically uses the situating noun men to tag a situation-defining participant, especially upon introduction into the discourse.) Arguably the explicit mention of these agents is not strictly necessary, because the verb already evokes them in the audience’s mind. (Examples of elision include 2 Sam 10:6; 11:5.) Here the point of doing so seems to be to enable the mention of the agents’ wide dispersion, or perhaps to underscore that the other tribes made a good-faith effort to avoid going to war with Benjamin.

(Although I argued in Stein 2018 that ‘agent’ was a distinct sense of אִישׁ, I no longer hold that position. Rather, in a schematic depiction of a conventional agency situation—as here—אִישׁ is the preferred label because it is communicatively efficient. In such utterances, the fact that one party is representing the interests of another one is evoked by salience; it goes without saying.)

Gender is not at issue. There is no warrant for rendering in gendered terms.

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As for rendering into English, NJPS supplies “men” (i.e., subordinates) for the sake of English idiom, yet nowadays this term overemphasizes their gender. Happily, ‘agents’ is a relatively vague role term that can serve as a substitute. (Cf. וַיִּשְׁלְח֣וּ בְנֵֽי־עַמּ֡וֹן in 2 Sam 10:6, which NJPS renders as “so the Ammonites sent agents” even though no object noun appears in the Hebrew.) On the customary practice of representing a Hebrew situating noun via an English (relational) role term, see my comment at Josh 10:24.