the leg: a person's lower leg between knee and foot, or an animal's hind leg, the cut set aside as an honored portion at a sacrifice
The word names the leg, and which part of the leg it means depends on whose leg it is. Of a person it is the lower leg, the shank running from the knee down toward the foot, marked off from the thigh and hip above it (the word יָרֵךְ) and from the foot below it (רֶגֶל). Judges sets the first two side by side in the grim phrase "leg upon thigh," which is itself the plainest proof that the two are not the same part of the body.
Of an animal the word points higher up, to the thick upper portion of the hind leg. That is the cut the sacrificial laws care about: when an Israelite brought a peace offering, the right hind leg was lifted out and handed to the priest along with the breast. So an ordinary word for a leg also became a fixed term for part of a priest's living, and the same custom honors a guest when Samuel has the leg kept back for Saul.
Everywhere else it simply names the leg, strong or weak:
- the beloved's legs standing like pillars of marble (Song of Songs 5:15),
- the useless legs that dangle on a lame man (Proverbs 26:7),
- a warrior's powerful legs, in which God takes no delight (Psalm 147:10),
- Babylon ordered to bare her leg and wade through the streams (Isaiah 47:2).
Nuances
Disputed
Which part of the leg the word denotes: the lower leg or shank, or the upper leg or thigh, and whether the answer changes for a human as against a sacrificial animal.
- majorityThe part meant depends on whose leg it is. Of a human it is the lower leg or calf, expressly distinguished from the thigh (יָרֵךְ); of a sacrificial animal it is the upper, thicker portion of the leg, the hind leg awarded as the officiant's prebend.; BDB, s.v. שׁוֹק; TWOT, s.v. שׁוֹק; Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1-16 (Anchor Bible); René Péter-Contesse and John Ellington, A Handbook on Leviticus (UBS Handbook Series)
- minorityThe word means the upper leg or thigh generally, effectively synonymous with the ordinary Hebrew term for the thigh, without a human/animal split.; International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, s.v. "leg"
- minorityIn the sacrificial legislation the portion is the shoulder or foreleg, the reading of the Greek and Latin traditions (βραχίων, armus) that stands behind the King James Version and is rejected by modern philology.; Septuagint (Rahlfs), Leviticus 7:32; Vulgate, Leviticus 7:32