SINEW

sin'-u (gidh (Job 10:11, etc.)): The tendons and sinews of the body are uniformly (7 times) thus called. "Therefore the children of Israel eat not the sinew of the hip which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day: because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew of the hip" (Genesis 32:32). In the poetical description of Behemoth (hippopotamus) it is said: "He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his thighs are knit together" (Job 40:17). The prophet Ezekiel saw in his vision (Job 37:6,8) that the dry bones were gathered together, that they were covered with sinews, flesh and skin, and that they were revived by the spirit of the Lord. In figurative language the neck of the obstinate is compared to an "iron sinew" (Isaiah 48:4). the King James Version "my sinews take no rest" (we`oreqay lo' yishkabhun, Job 30:17) has been corrected by the Revised Version (British and American) into "the pains that gnaw me take no rest," but the earlier version has been retained in the margin.

H. L. E. Luering

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Edited by James Orr, published in 1939 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.