a man: the grown male, named with a poetic dignity by a word rooted in strength
Hebrew has several words for a man, and this is the poets' choice. It grows from a root meaning "to be strong", and it is never everyday speech: the ordinary word אִישׁ fills plain narrative thousands of times, while this one turns up about sixty five times, nearly all of them in Job, the Psalms, Proverbs, Jeremiah and Lamentations. Picking it lifts the line, much as "a gentleman" sits higher in English than "a guy". What it names is the grown, able male, which is why prose can also use it to count the adult men of a crowd apart from the women and children.
The striking thing is what the poets do with it. Over and over the word rooted in strength is set beside God, and the strength drains out of it:
- Job asks whether such a man can ever be clean before his Maker, then says he dies and does not rise.
- A psalmist counted already among the dead calls himself a man with no vigor left.
- Lamentations opens its central poem "I am the man who has seen affliction".
- God twice tells Job to gird up his loins "like a man", and the summons only exposes him.
That collision is deliberate, and it is easy to lose in English, where "man" makes no promise of strength for the verse to break.
Keeping the neighbors apart helps. גִּבּוֹר is the word for a mighty man, a hero or a warrior, and it always means that; this word is milder, and only its setting can make it martial. אֱנוֹשׁ names the human being as frail and dying, the opposite feel, and one line of Job sets the two side by side so that weakness and strength answer each other. אָדָם is humankind, people in general. זָכָר is the flat label "male", used of babies and animals too. Later, in the Aramaic of Daniel and Ezra, the same root's noun (גְּבַר) had simply become the everyday word for a man, which shows how easily the strength faded.
From that centre the word stretches in a few directions: the adult males counted in a census or a muster, the fighting men of a raiding party, the male set against the female in a law or a taunt, and once, of locusts on the march, the bare "each one".
Nuances
Why Deuteronomy 22:5 uses גֶּבֶר rather than אִישׁ, and whether כְּלִי־גֶבֶר denotes clothing generally or specifically a man's weapons.
- contestedגֶּבֶר is chosen to connote masculinity as such over against femininity, its natural antonym being נְקֵבָה "female" rather than the "husband" sense אִישׁ carries when paired with אִשָּׁה.; J. Lemański, on Deuteronomy 22:5, following Kosmala (TDOT 2) and N. P. Bratsiotis, "אִישׁ," in TDOT 1
- minorityThe prohibited item is a man's weapon or armor, and the law stands against a background of ritual manipulation of masculine and feminine symbols.; H. A. Hoffner, "Symbols for Masculinity and Femininity," JBL 85 (1966): 326-334
- contestedNothing in Deuteronomy 22 ties the law to cultic practice; it maintains created gender boundaries in dress and equipment generally.; J. H. Tigay, Deuteronomy (JPS Torah Commentary, 1996); N. S. Fox, "Gender Transformation and Transgression," in Mishneh Todah (Fs. J. H. Tigay, 2009); P. J. Harland, "Menswear and Womenswear: A Study of Deuteronomy 22:5," ExpTim 110 (1998): 73-76
Whether גֶּבֶר in Job 3:3, used of a newborn, carries any overtone beyond "a male child".
- majoritySimply "a man", chosen so that the newborn of 3:3 is identified with the hedged-in sufferer called הַגֶּבֶר in 3:23; no overtone of strength, and none of a man in relationship with God.; D. J. A. Clines, Job 1-20 (Word Biblical Commentary 17, 1989); N. C. Habel, The Book of Job (Old Testament Library, 1985)
- minorityThe choice of גֶּבֶר for a newborn denotes a child with a promising future, part of a wider pattern in which the noun marks a man of distinctive spiritual standing.; H. Kosmala, "גבר gabar," in TDOT 2:367-382
What the "new thing" of Jeremiah 31:22 means, and whether גָּבֶר is chosen for its strength coloring or simply as the counterpart of נְקֵבָה.
- majorityA reversal of the normal order of things, welcome rather than threatening: the female encompasses or protects the man, answering the warriors writhing like women in labor in 30:6.; P. A. Kruger, "A Woman Will 'Encompass' a Man: On Gender Reversal in Jer 31,22b," Biblica 89 (2008): 380-388; J. R. Lundbom, Jeremiah 21-36 (Anchor Yale Bible 21B, 2004); W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah 2 (Hermeneia, 1989)
- minorityThe clause is a gloss or is textually corrupt, and no confident positive sense can be recovered.; W. McKane, Jeremiah, vol. 2 (International Critical Commentary, 1996)
- minorityA new creation echoing the making of male and female in Genesis 1:27.; B. W. Anderson, "'The Lord Has Created Something New': A Stylistic Study of Jer 31:15-22," CBQ 40 (1978): 463-478
- minorityAn undoing of the subordination of the woman pronounced in Genesis 3:16.; B. M. Bozak, Life 'Anew': A Literary-Theological Study of Jer. 30-31 (AnBib 122, 1991)
Disputed
How far the root idea of strength remains semantically active in the noun, and whether it designates a man of distinctive standing rather than simply a man.
- majorityAn elevated, chiefly poetic equivalent of אִישׁ, chosen for style, parallelism and register, with the etymological notion of strength no longer semantically active in most occurrences.; J. Kühlewein, "גֶּבֶר geber," in TLOT; D. J. A. Clines, Job 1-20 (Word Biblical Commentary 17, 1989)
- minorityStrength is definitional: "man as strong, distinguished from women, children, and non-combatants," with a further contextual sense "soldier" and a bleached distributive use equivalent to אִישׁ "each one."; BDB, s.v. גֶּבֶר; W. Gesenius, Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, s.v. גֶּבֶר
- minorityThe noun designates a man of particular spiritual quality standing in a special relationship with God; where strength is in view it is spiritual rather than physical.; H. Kosmala, "גבר gabar," in TDOT 2:367-382; H. Kosmala, "The Term geber in the Old Testament and in the Scrolls," in Congress Volume Rome 1968 (VTSup 17, 1969), 159-169