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Another nuance of this meaning appears in Job 2:5 where, used with “flesh,”
represents one’s “body”: “But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh
[his “body”].” A similar use appears in Jer. 20:9, where the word used by itself (and in
the plural form) probably represents the prophet’s entire “bodily frame”: “Then I said, I
will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine
heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones.…” Judg. 19:29 reports that a Levite cut his
defiled and murdered concubine into twelve pieces “limb by limb” (according to her
“bones” or bodily frame) and sent a part to each of the twelve tribes of Israel. In several
passages, the plural form represents the “seat of vigor or sensation”: “His bones are full
of the sin of his youth …” (Job 20:11; cf. 4:14).
In another nuance,
is used for the “seat of pain and disease”: “My bones are
pierced in me in the night season: and my sinews take no rest” (Job 30:17).
The plural of
sometimes signifies one’s “whole being”: “Have mercy upon me,
O Lord; for I am weak: O Lord, heal me; for my bones are vexed” (Ps. 6:2). Here the
word is synonymously parallel to “I.”
This word is frequently used of the “bones of the dead”: “And whosoever toucheth
one that is slain with a sword in the open fields, or a dead body, or a bone of a man, or a
grave, shall be unclean seven days” (Num. 19:16). Closely related to this nuance is the
use of
for “human remains,” probably including a mummified corpse: “And Joseph
took an oath of the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye shall carry
up my bones from hence” (Gen. 50:25).
,
sometimes represents “animal bones.” For example, the Passover lamb is to be
eaten in a single house and “thou shalt not carry forth aught of the flesh abroad out of the
house; neither shall ye break a bone thereof” (Exod. 12:46).
The word sometimes stands for the “substance of a thing”: “And they saw the God of
Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it
were the body of heaven in his clearness [as the bone of the sky]” (Exod. 24:10). In Job
21:23, the word means “full”: “One dieth in his full strength.…” At other points,
means “same” or “selfsame”: “In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Shem, and Ham
and Japheth, the sons of Noah …” (Gen. 7:13).
BOOK
(
!
, 5612), “book; document; writing.”
)
seems to be a loanword from
the Akkadian
$
(“written message,” “document”). The word appears 187 times in the
Hebrew Old Testament, and the first occurrence is in Gen. 5:1: “This is the book of the
generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God”
(
RSV
). The word is rare in the Pentateuch except for Deuteronomy (11 times). The usage
increases in the later historical books (Kings 60 times but Chronicles 24 times; cf. Esther
11 times and Nehemiah 9 times).
The most common translation of
is “book.” A manuscript was written (Exod.
32:32; Deut. 17:18) and sealed (Isa. 29:11), to be read by the addressee (2 Kings 22:16).
The sense of
is similar to “scroll” (
): “Therefore go thou, and read in the
roll [
] which thou hast written from my mouth, the words of the Lord in the ears of