Flesh (from its freshness ); by extension, body , person ; also (by euphemistically) the pudenda of a man
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בָּשָׂר in the OT is not a problem to be escaped — it is the creaturely substance of real human life. Gen 2:23-24 uses it for the profound union of marriage ('bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh'; 'they shall become one flesh'); Isa 40:5-6 uses it for the transience of all human glory ('all flesh is grass'); Gen 6:3 uses it for the creaturely limitation that makes humans dependent on God ('my Spirit shall not.
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Full entry for בָּשָׂר (H1320) · Open the biblical lexicon
בָּשָׂר in the OT is not a problem to be escaped — it is the creaturely substance of real human life. Gen 2:23-24 uses it for the profound union of marriage ('bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh'; 'they shall become one flesh'); Isa 40:5-6 uses it for the transience of all human glory ('all flesh is grass'); Gen 6:3 uses it for the creaturely limitation.
The BSB source-word alignment has 270 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include . . . (26), flesh (26), meat (21), the meat (21), the flesh (16).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 2:21. Its strongest book concentrations include Leviticus (61), Genesis (33), Ezekiel (24), Job (18).
בָּשָׂר in the OT is not a problem to be escaped — it is the creaturely substance of real human life. Gen 2:23-24 uses it for the profound union of marriage ('bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh'; 'they shall become one flesh'); Isa 40:5-6 uses it for the transience of all human glory ('all flesh is grass'); Gen 6:3 uses it for the creaturely limitation that makes humans dependent on God ('my Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh').
The word's range from kinship warmth to creaturely frailty makes it the OT's most human word. The theological weight comes from what it stands against: YHWH is not flesh (Isa 31:3), and 'all flesh' standing before YHWH is the posture of creatures before the Creator. The NT's escalation — 'the Word became flesh' (John 1:14) — is the most radical possible statement about the incarnation: the eternal Son entered the full creaturely condition that בָּשָׂר names, took on its transience and dependence, and did not thereby cease to be God.
The local Hebrew index currently counts about 270 occurrences. The heaviest concentrations are Genesis (the 'all flesh' Flood narrative and the circumcision covenant), Leviticus (sacrificial flesh), Ezekiel (heart of stone vs. heart of flesh), and the prophets (flesh vs. spirit).
So the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days shall be 120 years.”
The creaturely limit of בָּשָׂר: flesh cannot sustain unlimited divine presence. The Spirit's abiding in the creature is a gift and a grace, not an entitlement. This is the OT's baseline: בָּשָׂר is the creature that is dependent on the Spirit for life, and that dependency is not a defect but a definition.
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
בָּשָׂר as the substance of covenant union. 'One flesh' is not merely a euphemism for sexual union but a description of the covenant-kinship bond that marriage creates. Jesus cites this in Matt 19:5-6 and Paul in Eph 5:31 — both read 'one flesh' as the deepest human union, pointing toward the union between Christ and the church.
A voice says, “Cry out!” And I asked, “What should I cry out?” “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field.
The mortality register: כָּל־בָּשָׂר as transient and fragile. The prophet is commanded to announce the creaturely limitation of all human power and glory in contrast to 'the word of our God which stands forever' (v.8). 1 Pet 1:24-25 quotes this passage directly to describe the perishable nature of humanity in contrast to the imperishable gospel.
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
The redemptive inversion: here בָּשָׂר (flesh) is positive — the heart of flesh is responsive, pliable, alive — as against the heart of stone. The new covenant promise is not the removal of בָּשָׂר but its renewal. The Spirit-given heart of flesh is what the NT calls the regenerate heart.
But the Egyptians are men, not God; their horses are flesh, not spirit. When the Lord stretches out His hand, the helper will stumble, and the one he helps will fall; both will perish together.
The flesh-spirit contrast in the OT's diagnostic mode: trusting in military power is trusting in בָּשָׂר — creaturely, limited, subject to failure. This is not an ontological dualism but a wisdom warning: what is merely human cannot sustain what only the divine can provide.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Flesh as the vulnerable human body, emphasizing mortality, kinship, and bodily shame or nakedness.
Flesh as the vulnerable human body, emphasizing mortality, kinship, and bodily shame or nakedness.
flesh (from its freshness); by extension, body, person; also (by euphemistically) the pudenda of a man BDB: flesh Usage: body, (fat, lean) flesh(-ed), kin, (man-) kind, nakedness, self, skin.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 4 selected witnesses from 270 lexical occurrence verses.
בָּשָׂר is built from this root:
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
John 1:14 — 'the Word became flesh' — is the theological endpoint that gives every OT use of בָּשָׂר its retrospective weight. The 'all flesh is grass' of Isa 40:6, the creaturely limitation of Gen 6:3, the transience of human glory — all of this is what the eternal Son took on. The incarnation is not the Son descending into something alien; it is His taking up the full creaturely condition that בָּשָׂר names.
This is why Paul's σάρξ theology (the flesh as the sinful orientation, Rom 8:5-8) cannot simply be identified with בָּשָׂר — the OT word is neutral about flesh's moral status. The NT moves from בָּשָׂר's creaturely frailty to σάρξ's moral fallenness as a second step.
Gen.6.3
כָּל־בָּשָׂר ('all flesh') is the OT's idiom for the totality of living creatures, especially humans. It appears in the Flood narrative (Gen 6:12-13, 17, 19; 7:15-16, 21), in the cosmic proclamation of Isa 40:5 and 49:26, and in Joel 2:28 — regularly describing the creaturely side of the creator-creature relationship. When Acts 2:17 quotes Joel 2:28 ('I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh'), the 'all' is the point: the Spirit given only to prophets and leaders in the OT is now poured on every כָּל־בָּשָׂר who calls on the name of the Lord.
The OT trajectory: Gen 2:23-24 (flesh as kinship-union) → Gen 6:3 (flesh as creaturely limitation) → Isa 40:6 (all flesh as grass) → Ezek 36:26 (heart of flesh as the renewed heart) → NT: John 1:14 ('the Word became flesh') → Rom 8:3 ('God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh') → 1 Pet 1:24 (quoting Isa 40:6: all flesh is grass, but the Word of the Lord endures). The arc moves from בָּשָׂר as creaturely substance to the Son's assumption of it to the gospel as the imperishable word that outlasts all flesh.
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