the kidney: the bodily organ, most often the fat-encased pair cut out and burned in sacrifice
In its plain sense the word names a real body part, the kidney. Almost all of these uses sit in the rules for sacrifice, where the two kidneys and the thick fat around them are cut out of the animal and burned on the altar as the portion that belongs to God alone.
Because that fat was prized as the richest part of the animal, the word could also stand for the choicest of anything: the "kidney-fat of wheat" simply means the finest wheat. And because a wound to the kidneys is usually fatal, poets reach for the same organ to picture a death blow that strikes a person at the core.
Nuances
Whether the piercing of Job's kidneys pictures a literal, mortal body wound or a symbolic assault on his hidden inner self. Some read the choice of the kidneys as signaling that God has violated Job's most secret core rather than merely wounding his body; others treat the concrete wound and the symbolic strike as inseparable in Hebrew bodily language.
- contestedA symbolic wound: naming the kidneys signals that God has struck Job's most secret inner core, not just his body.; David J. A. Clines, Job 1-20 (Word Biblical Commentary 17, 1989), 388-389
- contestedThe concrete wound and the symbolic assault are inseparable; Hebrew bodily language resists splitting them.; Norman C. Habel, The Book of Job (Old Testament Library, 1985), 273; Marvin H. Pope, Job (Anchor Bible 15, 1973), 122
Disputed
Whether burning the kidneys on the altar carries symbolic meaning or is purely a matter of anatomy. Because the same organ elsewhere stands for the innermost self, some read the altar-fire as a symbolic surrender of the offerer's hidden core; others hold that the kidneys are burned only because they are embedded in the suet that the priestly fat rule (Leviticus 3:16-17) reserves for God, and that the later metaphor grew out of the practice rather than shaping it.
- majorityThe kidneys are burned for anatomical reasons, being fused to the fat that the fat rule assigns to God; the interior symbolism is a downstream by-product of the practice.; Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16 (Anchor Bible 3, 1991), 205-225
- minorityThe burning of the hidden, fat-encased kidneys symbolically enacts the offerer's surrender of the innermost self at the veil of the sanctuary.; Mary Douglas, Leviticus as Literature (1999), 66-86; Erhard S. Gerstenberger, Leviticus (Old Testament Library, 1996), 46-50; Silvia Schroer and Thomas Staubli, Body Symbolism in the Bible (2001)