FLESH (in the OT). Three words in the OT are used to tr. “flesh,” as follows: בָּשָׂר, H1414, which occurs 269 times; שְׁאֵר, H8638, found sixteen times, and טִבְחָה, H3186, occurring three times and tr. “flesh” on one occasion only (1 Sam 25:11 KJV). Whereas the last of these words referred solely to slaughtered meat (1 Sam 25:11; Ps 44:22; Jer 12:3) the other two were used in relation to the principal physical constituent of the human body as well as in connection with food and animal sacrifices.
1. Literal usage. The word bāsār, Ugaritic bshr, seems to be most closely related to the Akkad. bishru, whose meaning embraced such concepts as flesh and blood or a family relationship by blood. Its earliest connotation may have been that of the flesh immediately beneath the skin, but this is uncertain at present. In common usage bāsār signified the soft muscular tissues of the body, both of men (Gen 2:21; 2 Kings 5:14, etc.) and animals (Gen 41:2; Deut 14:8; etc.). Such organic bodies were still regarded as flesh even when dead (1 Sam 17:44), and only lost their characteristics when they returned to the earth in the form of dust (Eccl 12:7). All OT writers based their concept of flesh in a literal sense on the words of Genesis 2:7 and 7:22, which describe flesh as the clay (the “dust” of the Eng. VSS) from the ground which had been made to live as the result of divine creativity. Animal flesh alone could be used for food (Gen 9:4; 40:19, etc.), although the hygienic prescriptions of the Mosaic law (Lev 11:2-47) made a careful distinction between animals and birds which were fit for food and those which, because of their particular eating habits, were unsuitable for human consumption. Although the term se'ēr was far less frequently used in the OT, it was nevertheless of considerable antiquity, related etymologically to the Akkad. word shîru, “flesh,” and may have been distinguished from the Akkad. bishru in that the former was prob. thought of as the inner organic tissues of the body which were richly supplied with blood vessels and which therefore bled profusely when seriously damaged. As with bāsār, se'ēr denoted the body or flesh in general (Prov 11:17 KJV; Mic 3:2 KJV, RSV etc.), or the whole constituent human being (Ps 73:26; Prov 5:11). With reference to the animal creation it also denoted flesh to be used as food (Exod 21:10 KJV; Ps 78:20, 27 KJV).
2. Metaphorical use. Aside from its purely literal incidence, the Hebrews generally employed the term “flesh” in a figure of rhetoric known as synecdoche as a means of referring to the human body either partially or as a whole. Synecdoche is a rhetorical form which is based on contiguity and, as the Gr. name implies, involves the understanding of one element or concept simultaneously with another. Thus the individual can be substituted for the class, the more general for the less general, the concrete for the abstract, and so on. In this sense the word “flesh” could denote humanity in a comprehensive sense, and by extension the expression “all flesh” could include the animal creation (Gen 6:13 RSV; Lev 17:14 KJV, etc.). Similarly the concept of “flesh” served as an acceptable substitute for the human personality, since the body constituted its spatio-temporal extension (Job 19:26 RSV; Ps 16:9 KJV). This was thoroughly consistent with the tradition of creativity (Gen 2:7) where God breathed the living breath into the clay which He had fashioned into human shape and man became a nepes hayyāh. This expression was rendered in the KJV and ASV by “living soul” and in the RSV by “living being,” but the true emphasis of the Heb. is not so much upon “soul” or “existence” as upon the fact that, by virtue of special creativity, man is an integrated living personality. For this reason the ancient Hebrews found no difficulty whatever in attributing emotional or psychosomatic functions to bodily organs other than the brain, whose workings were unknown to them, because the fact that the individual constituted an integrated personality meant that psychic and somatic functions necessarily interpenetrated one another at the various levels of existence. This realization, which was expressed widely and in differing ways in the OT writings, has formed the basis of modern psychosomatic medical research. It need occasion no surprise, therefore, to discover that under this figure of rhetoric the “flesh” could be used to designate the personality in its total reaction to life (Ps 63:1 [Heb 63:2]), where the psalmist paralleled the idea of the soul thirsting with the flesh fainting. By extending the psychosomatic concept in a particular direction and fixing it upon one of the internal organs which gave vitality to the “flesh” or personality, it was possible in poetic thought to conceive of the “heart and flesh” singing for joy (Ps 84:2, [Heb 84:3]). By contrast, the heart of the psalmist had been stricken within him, so that his knees became weak with fasting and his body gaunt with hunger (Ps 109:23, 24). Because of his physical appearance his enemies knew that he was enduring emotional and spiritual affliction. The author of Lamentations (3:4) complained that the outpouring of divine anger had made his flesh and his skin waste away and had broken his bones, implying that affliction had brought his entire personality to a low level of expression. The term “flesh” was used also in this same fig. sense as a euphemism for parts of the human body which were associated with sexual activity. The reference to the normal menstruation of the female is directed to the functioning of the womb (Lev 15:19). In another reference to a bodily discharge (15:2, 3, 7), the term bāsār alludes to the male genitalia and to a venereal secretion, as contrasted with the benign emissions (15:16-18). Such euphemisms are seen also in the substitution of “hands” and “feet” for the male or female genitalia (e.g., Deut 28:57; Ruth 3:4; 1 Kings 15:23; Isa 6:2, etc.), while a similar usage has been preserved by the KJV rendering of “flesh” (Ezek 16:26; 23:20). The circumcising of the “flesh” is a more familiar way of avoiding a direct reference to the membrum virile (Gen 17:14, etc.).
A second fig. use of the term “flesh” involved a rhetorical device known as metonymy, which is somewhat different from synecdoche. Instead of naming the thing itself, metonymy describes it in terms of some significant accompaniment or adjunct; whereas in synecdoche the name substituted is generally cognate in meaning, in metonymy the meaning is often less closely related to the substituted term. In the latter figure the instrument can do duty for the agent, the container for the thing contained, the maker for the thing made, the name of a passion for the object of desire, and so on. By using bāsār or se'ēr in this way the Hebrews could think of “flesh” in terms of natural or family relationships. Thus Adam spoke of his helpmeet as specifically “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (2:23), and the brothers of Joseph expressed the same sentiment (37:27). Two terms were employed (Lev 18:6; 25:49) to express the concept of a somatic relative, while se'ēr was used to designate both sides of family descent (Lev 18:12, 13). Under the patriarchal system the unit of natural relationship could reach beyond the family to include the township (Judg 9:2) or the people as a whole (2 Sam 5:1).
3. Theological implications. Although the term “flesh” frequently denoted the vitality of individual personality, there are several instances where human flesh was associated with weakness and frailty. The mortal nature of man was implied (Gen 6:3; cf. Job 34:15), while God was mentioned as excusing human sin on the ground that men were only flesh after all (Ps 78:39). Flesh as weakness was compared unfavorably with spirit as strength (Isa 31:3), and a similar figure occurred in 2 Chronicles 32:8, revealing the weakness of the king of Assyria, described as “an arm of flesh,” as contrasted with the mighty power of God. On occasions the use of the expression “all flesh” has direct implications of weakness (Isa 40:6), where humanity was compared to grass which is frail, short-lived, and easily consumed (cf. Pss 37:2; 90:5; 103:15). The dependence of “all flesh” upon God for day to day sustenance was emphasized in Psalm 136:25.
From the comprehensive concept of “flesh” as representative of the people (2 Sam 5:1) it is possible to argue toward the use of bāsār along the lines of corporate personality. This is by no means out of harmony with other aspects of OT thought, since the covenant relationship between God and Israel was based upon this general concept. Consequently, the forgiveness of national sins of inadvertence could be entertained in the Heb. sacrificial system just as readily as atonement could for individuals, both procedures not uncommonly involving animal bāsār. Taking the religious implications of corporate personality one stage further, it was because of the uncovenanted mercies of God to Abraham and his descendants that all the nations of the earth would be able to bless themselves (Gen 12:3; 18:18, etc.).
The OT theology of human personality, noted above, is of a dynamic order which emphasizes the psycho-physical unity of human nature. Although this “flesh” was regarded in the OT as generally weak, there is no single element in Heb. thought which corresponds to the NT view of the “flesh” as the central principle of fallen humanity. While the flesh for the Hebrews was frail, it was not regarded as sinful, and the nearest approach to the idea of moral weakness seems to be in Psalm 78:39. Salvation for Ezekiel constituted that regeneration which would replace a stony heart with one of flesh (Ezek 36:26), which contains the idea that the flesh is perverted.
Bibliography J. A. T. Robinson, The Body (1952), 11-16; N. W. Porteous, IDB, II, 276; J. A. Motyer, Baker’s Dictionary of Theology (1960), 222f.