On the noun אִישׁ in 1 Samuel 2:33

(The above rendering is the footnoted alternative rendering in 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.)

Now, it is indeed rare for אֲנָשִׁים to be used adverbially in predication. Prototypically, this plural form of the situating noun indicates a group’s definitive participation as such within a depicted situation. Accordingly, in the present predicate, אֲנָשִׁים straightforwardly describes the death scene by evoking a multiplicity of simultaneous participants in the event: “die as a group.” As such, this prediction foretells (or at least foreshadows) the mass execution of Eli’s priestly descendants that will be recounted in 22:18–20. This construal readily yields a coherent and informative text.

Interpretation of the cryptic expression יָמוּתוּ אֲנָשִׁים is hindered because it appears within a verse whose meaning is uncertain (and whose text is also uncertain, given the Septuagint’s evident divergence).

As for rendering into English, the NJPS ‘as [ordinary] men’ is a guess for a longstanding interpretive crux. Unfortunately, the NJPS construal does not yield an informative text. The revised rendering, borrowed from French (and placed in a new footnote), is the most idiomatic way of expressing the adverbial force of אֲנָשִׁים in English.