גֶּ֫רֶם

From the study of Proverbs 17:22

Range of meaning

Bone, bodily frame, strength. It is a rare, poetic word, also found in Aramaic (where it is the ordinary word for bone). It appears in Genesis 49:14 ('a strong-boned donkey'), Job 40:18 (Behemoth's bones), Proverbs 25:15 ('a soft tongue breaks bone') and Proverbs 17:22. The more common Hebrew word for bone is etsem.

Against the English

Most translations say 'bones'. NLT paraphrases as 'saps a person's strength', which is accurate in sense but loses the image.

Used elsewhere in the period

In Hebrew thinking, bones hold a person's vigour and stand for the self. 'All my bones shall say' (Psalm 35:10). 'My strength was dried up like a potsherd' (Psalm 22:15). 'Good news fattens the bones' (Proverbs 15:30). Grief 'rots' or 'wastes' the bones (Psalm 32:3–4; Proverbs 14:30). Ezekiel 37 uses 'very dry bones' as the picture of a people as good as dead.

From the study of Proverbs 25:15

Range of meaning

Bone, perhaps especially strong, solid bone. The word is rare and mostly poetic: Issachar is a 'strong-boned donkey' (chamor garem, Gen 49:14); Job 40:18 describes Behemoth's limbs as bars of iron; Prov 17:22 says 'a crushed spirit dries up the bones'. 2 Kings 9:13 uses it in the sense of 'bare' steps (the 'bone' of the stairs). It is more common in Aramaic, where it means bone or 'self'.

Against the English

Translations agree on 'bone'. The difficulty is not the word but how modern readers hear 'break a bone', as an injury or something hurtful, when in the proverb it is an image for overcoming the hardest resistance.

Used elsewhere in the period

Jerome's Latin Vulgate already reads the image as metaphor: lingua mollis confringet duritiam, 'a soft tongue will break hardness'. The Greek Septuagint keeps 'bones' (ostā).