עוֹר

From the study of Job 2:4

Range of meaning

Human skin (Exod 34:29, the skin of Moses' face; Lev 13 for skin disease), animal hide, and leather goods (Lev 11:32; Num 31:20). Hides were also traded and used to make things, such as the 'skins' covering the tabernacle (Exod 26:14).

Against the English

Every major English version keeps 'skin for skin.' That is accurate, but in English it sounds like a riddle. The Hebrew phrase was probably a known saying whose exact use we no longer have.

Used elsewhere in the period

This exact saying appears nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible. Inside Job, 'skin' becomes a theme: 2:7 (sores from sole to crown), 7:5 ('my skin hardens and breaks out again'), 19:20 ('I have escaped by the skin of my teeth'), 19:26 ('after my skin has been destroyed'), 30:30 ('my skin grows black'). The Greek Septuagint renders it literally, δέρμα ὑπὲρ δέρματος, and so does the Latin Vulgate, pellem pro pelle. Rabbinic tradition (Rashi, followed by the Aramaic Targum tradition) reads it as 'limb for limb': a man raises his arm and lets it take the blow to protect his head.

From the study of Exodus 34:29

Range of meaning

Skin or hide, of humans or animals. It is used for leather goods and for the skin examined in the skin-disease laws of Leviticus 13.

Against the English

KJV, WEB, ESV and NASB keep 'the skin of his face'. BSB, NIV and NLT reduce it to 'his face'. That loses the stress on the physical surface: the skin itself is what is changed.

Used elsewhere in the period

Common throughout the Hebrew Bible. Rabbinic writers played on the near-identical sound of ʿor ('skin') and ʾor ('light'). Later Jewish tradition also connected Moses' radiance with the 'garments of skin' in Genesis 3:21; some early sources read that phrase as 'garments of light'.

From the study of Genesis 3:21

Range of meaning

Skin of a person or an animal; hide; leather as a material.

Against the English

BSB, NIV and NASB say 'skin'; KJV and ESV say 'skins', though the Hebrew is singular and names a material. WEB and NLT add 'animal', which is a reasonable inference but is not a word in the Hebrew.

How it drifted

No real shift in the word itself. The distortion comes from images of cavemen in furs, and from retellings that treat the word as if it told us about a slaughter.

Used elsewhere in the period

Human skin (Leviticus 13, Job 19:20); animal hide, including the hide of a burnt offering kept by the priest (Leviticus 7:8); leather goods (Leviticus 11:32, Numbers 31:20); Elijah's leather belt (2 Kings 1:8). Job 10:11 pairs this word with the same verb: 'you clothed me with skin and flesh', the verse behind one ancient reading of our passage. The Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation) has chitōnas dermatinous, 'leather tunics', and the Vulgate (the Latin) has tunicas pellicias, 'tunics of hide'.