Plural Problems (3) More Strange Stuff

Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken out of man.”  Genesis 2:23  ESV

Woman/ man – We already know that something quite unusual, and spectacular, is happening in this verse.  The first occurrence of both ʾiššâ (woman) and ʾiš (man) is here.  But the words are not etymologically related.  This is a wordplay on the sound, not the source.  Furthermore, as we’ve noted before, this is the place where the “man,” Adam, declares that his self-identity and self-awareness has changed because of the presence of the woman.  As the verse unfolds, the man (in Hebrew ʾādām) calls himself ʾiš (“taken out of man”).  After this single verse, the story reverts to the customary ʾādām.  There is something about the relationship here that causes ʾādām to become ʾiš.  Plumbing the depths of that relationship has been the task of mankind ever since.

Now, however, I’d like to point out another very strange thing about this verse.  There are no plurals of ʾiššâ (woman) or ʾiš (man) in Hebrew.  Oh, there are plurals for “women” and “men,” but they are not the plurals of these two Hebrew words.  The plurals in Hebrew are related to another word entirely, אֱנוֹשׁ (ʾĕnôš).  TWOT states:

אנשׁ (ʾnš) II. Assumed root of the following.

The basic meaning of ʾĕnôš is “man” in the sense of “mankind.” The word can refer to an individual only in the most general sense (e.g. “blessed is the man who does this” [Isa 56:2]) and thus lacks the specificity of ʾîš. It is used mainly in the poetic material.  The verbal root of ʾĕnôš is uncertain.^[1]

Notice that there is no uniform agreement about the etymology of this word.  This is particularly troubling when we realize that plural terms for “men” and “women” (anashim and nashim) seem to be derived from this root.  The words for men and women, used constantly in the Hebrew Bible, aren’t even related to the words for a single man and a single woman.  Why?  The lexicons call this an “irregular plural.”  That’s true, but it doesn’t explain why this is the case for these two words.

“The word nashim is an irregular plural form of the singular isha (instead of the expected regular ishot, which doesn’t exist). The masculine morphological counterpart of the feminine isha is ish, which too can be translated as ‘man’, but it has the gender-incidental meaning of ‘man’, more akin to ‘person’. Like isha, ish too has an irregular plural, anashim, which means ‘people’ rather than ‘men’ (vs. gvarim).”[2]

But why?  Why don’t the plurals of ʾiššâ (woman) and ʾiš (man) exist?  Why are the plural forms irregular, derived from a word that does not appear in the fundamental Genesis text about man and woman in relationship?  The text is so important that Yeshua cites this story as the basis of the marriage contract (Matthew 19:5).  But it seems to be a one-of-a-kind verse.  Why?

There are some scholarly studies that suggest these irregular plurals occur because of the Hebrew penchant for dropping certain letters in derived words.  For example, it’s common to drop a Yod from certain conjugations.  Consequently, some have suggested that the word ishsha drops a Nun.  On this basis, Horowitz believes that the fuller version of ishsha (containing the Nun) explains its connection to the plural.  The commentator Shadai suggests something similar.  This is in alignment with earlier Jewish works like the Radak and Rashi.[3]

I think all of these discussions miss the point.  I don’t believe etymology is the problem.  I think that the issue is phenomenological and paradigmatic.  It’s not where the words came from.  It’s what they communicate.  The fact that ish and ishsha exist only in singular forms seems to me to underscore that the design for “marriage”[4] is intentional singular.  It’s one man and one woman.  The fundamental relationship of the marriage covenant is singular.  There are no plurals for this kind of relationship because the plural form of God’s design does not exist.  You may object that there are many examples of multiple wives, even among the patriarchs.  True enough, but that does not change God’s intended design.  It only means that men didn’t follow the divine intention.  And, by the way, multiple wives are not designated by a plural form of ishsha.

What do we learn?[5]  What we learn is that in Hebrew some things are so fundamental that even the language can’t be manipulated to accommodate another paradigm.  The absolutely basic relationship of all relationships is ish-ishsha.  Even God uses this marriage contract idea to speak of His relationship with Israel.  Just as there are no plural forms of the God-Israel connection, there are no plural forms of the Man-Woman connection.  Everything about who we are is tied to this one-of-a-kind union.

Topical Index:  ʾiššâ, ʾiš, nashim, anashim, man, woman, men, women, Genesis 2:23

^[1] Mccomiskey, T. E. (1999). 136 אנשׁ. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 59). Chicago: Moody Press.

[2] https://www.languagesoftheworld.info/semantics-and-pragmatics/a-man-and-a-woman.html

[3] For a fuller discussion of this issue, see Balashon – Hebrew Language Detective, October 17, 2008.  https://www.balashon.com/2008/10/

[4] I put “marriage” in quotes because there is no official marriage per se in this story but the relationship is the paradigm case of what we call marriage.

[5] Two Christian articles that hint at my point (but include other questionable comments) can be found here:

https://answersingenesis.org/blogs/simon-turpin/2016/04/04/genesis-2-foundation-marriage/

https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-7-god-s-design-marriage-genesis-218-25