Aramaic word · H1321
בְּשַׁר
besar
flesh
Literally flesh, meat. By extension it means living creatures or humankind, viewed as bodily, mortal and weak. The ending acts like "the": flesh as a class of being.
A Biblical Aramaic word, from the parts of the Old Testament written in Aramaic. Why Aramaic?
Appears 3 times in 3 verses of the Aramaic of the Old Testament. ·
What it means
flesh
Aramaic of ba.sar (בָּשָׂר "flesh" H1320)
Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
Literally flesh, meat. By extension it means living creatures or humankind, viewed as bodily, mortal and weak. The ending acts like "the": flesh as a class of being.
- Against the English
KJV, WEB and ESV keep "flesh," preserving the image but risking misunderstanding. BSB's "mortals" and NIV's "humans" get the sense across but lose the bodily picture of creatures made of meat and destined to die.
- How it drifted
Paul's use of "flesh" for humanity under the power of sin (Romans 7–8, Galatians 5) has shaped how Christian readers hear the English word. Some modern Bibles even render Paul's term "sinful nature." None of that is in view here.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Aramaic: Daniel 4:12 ("all flesh" fed from the tree, including animals) and 7:5 (literal flesh eaten). The Hebrew relative shows the same contrast in Isaiah 31:3 ("their horses are flesh and not spirit"), Isaiah 40:6 ("all flesh is grass") and Psalm 56:4. The Greek versions read "all flesh," a standard biblical phrase.
Where it appears
Daniel · 3
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Daniel 2:11 בִּשְׂרָ֖א <the> flesh
What the king requests is so difficult that no one can tell it to him except the gods, whose dwelling is not with mortals.”
Here: "The flesh": mortal, bodily creatures as a class, set against the gods. It describes what humans are, frail and mortal, and passes no moral judgment.
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Daniel 4:12 בִּשְׂרָֽא׃ <the> flesh
Its leaves were beautiful, its fruit was abundant, and upon it was food for all. Under it the beasts of the field found shelter, in its branches the birds of the air nested, and from it every creature was fed.
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Daniel 7:5 בְּשַׂ֥ר flesh
Suddenly another beast appeared, which looked like a bear. It was raised up on one of its sides, and it had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth. So it was told, ‘Get up and gorge yourself on flesh!’
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.