וְזֹ֣את הַבְּרָכָ֗ה אֲשֶׁ֨ר בֵּרַ֥ךְ מֹשֶׁ֛ה אִ֥ישׁ הָאֱלֹהִ֖ים אֶת־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל לִפְנֵ֖י מוֹתֽוֹ׃
This is the blessing with which Moses, the agent of God, bade the Israelites farewell before he died.
(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.)
The role term אִישׁ אֱלֹהִים occurs 73 times in the Hebrew Bible—often in its grammatically definite form אִישׁ הָאֱלֹהִים, as here. It follows a pattern of using the situating noun in construct position, in order to label a social role by evoking the conventional situation that involves that role. Such labels include:
אִישׁ רִיב = disputant in a lawsuit
אִישׁ מִלְחָמָה = warrior
אִישׁ בְּשֹׂרָה = news bearer
אִישׁ־הַבֵּנַיִם = champion in representative combat
Whenever אִישׁ אֱלֹהִים is used as a label or title, the referent articulates God’s view of the political or social situation at hand, or otherwise represents God’s interests regarding that situation—that is, he brings the divine realm to bear upon the mundane realm. The term itself situates the referent between God and the rest of society.
For characteristic usages, see Judg 13:6; 1 Kings 17:24; 2 Kings 1:9–13; 4:16; 5:14; 8:4. The fact that some individuals labeled as such are also depicted without normal human ties arises incidentally from the role. Whenever someone is serving as the agent for another party, that agent’s other identities become irrelevant.
Whenever someone serves as the agent of another party, they functionally take on the identity of their principal. In this case, because the principal is God, who transcends the normal social ties of household/clan/tribe, a person in this agency role is consequently placed outside of those normal societal ties and loyalties. What matters is their tie to God, not to other people.
As for translation into English, the NJPS (and traditional) rendering man of God is inapt, for two main reasons: Its meaning reflects a Christian construal; and the markedly increased gendering in recent decades of the noun man has undercut its meaning. I will now discuss each of these issues, in turn.
(1) The meaning of man of God is “a man devoted to the service of God,” according to “man, n.1 (and int.),” Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. P2.t. Yet this reflects a Christian construal. Christianity’s New Testament applied the term man of God to anyone who relinquishes normal human ties in order to serve God alone. (The apostle Paul was pointedly employing the Greek term ἄνθρωπος τοῦ θεοῦ, the same term that the Septuagint [Old Greek] translation of the Hebrew Bible’s books had used throughout to render אִישׁ אֱלֹהִים.) However, as noted above, that meaning is at best secondary to the Hebrew Bible’s usage; devotion is never at issue where אִישׁ אֱלֹהִים appears.
(Another definition of man of God, “a godly man,” as given in Merriam-Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary [s.v. “man of God,” accessed 6/24/2022], is equally inapt for the Hebrew Bible’s usages. There, the character of the agent is not at issue; rather, the designee is in God’s service.)
(2) As a label deployed to refer to persons, man belongs to a tiny yet important class of words: it is a situating noun. Historically, its primary function has been to situate the person being talked about (in linguistic terms, the “referent”). Typically when a speaker employs such a noun, it signals that the audience should attend to the referent’s place within the depicted situation, rather than to the person’s intrinsic features. The situating noun man enables a situation to be sketched succinctly, in a schematic way. It links the participant to the situation and vice versa.
In recent decades, however, as the gendered semantic content of man has increased, it has become less able to perform its classic situating task. In the expression “man of God,” man now evokes an emphasis on (masculine) gender that did not exist in the Hebrew Bible text—and therefore man overrepresents gender as a matter of concern. Meanwhile, the attenuation of the situating nuance of man has undercut its meaning in this expression, leaving an opaque term in its wake.
Consequently, the present revision instead employs the rendering agent of God—an expression that is consistent with all of the Hebrew term’s characteristic usages. This is not to claim that אִישׁ means “agent” per se. Rather, as a relational noun that evokes the defining relationship (that in turn defines the situation), “agent” is the closest contextual equivalent in English that does not make an issue of gender. See further my comment at Josh 10:24.