Sinew
Webster's Dictionary [1]
(1): ( v. t.) To knit together, or make strong with, or as with, sinews.
(2): ( n.) Fig.: That which supplies strength or power.
(3): ( n.) Muscle; nerve.
(4): ( n.) A tendon or tendonous tissue. See Tendon.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible [2]
Sinew (that shrank). See Genesis 32:32 for the traditional origin of a special food-taboo (cf. Food, § 10), the result of which was that the Hebrews abstained from eating the sciatic muscle (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘the sinew of the hip’) of animals otherwise clean. The prohibition is not mentioned in any of the legislative codes of the Pentateuch.
A. R. S. Kennedy.
King James Dictionary [3]
SIN'EW, n.
1. In anatomy, a tendon that which unites a muscle to a bone. 2. In the plural, strength or rather that which supplies strength. Money is the sinews of war. 3. Muscle nerve.
SIN'EW, To knit as by sinews.
Holman Bible Dictionary [4]
Job 10:11 Isaiah 48:4 Genesis 32:32
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia [5]
sin´ū ( גּיד , gı̄dh ( Job 10:11 , etc.)): The tendons and sinews of the body are uniformly (7 times) thus called. "Therefore the children of Israel eat not the sinew of the hip which is upon the hollow of the thigh, unto this day: because he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh in the sinew of the hip" ( Genesis 32:32 ). In the poetical description of Behemoth (hippopotamus) it is said: "He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his thighs are knit together" ( Job 40:17 ). The prophet Ezekiel saw in his vision ( Ezekiel 37:6 , Ezekiel 37:8 ) that the dry bones were gathered together, that they were covered with sinews, flesh and skin, and that they were revived by the spirit of the Lord. In figurative language the neck of the obstinate is compared to an "iron sinew" ( Isaiah 48:4 ). the King James Version "my sinews take no rest" ( we‛oreḳay lō' yishkābhūn , Job 30:17 ) has been corrected by the Revised Version (British and American) into "the pains that gnaw me take no rest," but the earlier version has been retained in the margin.
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [6]
(once for עֹרֶק , A Gnawer, i.e. Pain [ Job 30:17]; elsewhere גַּיד , Gid ) occurs especially in the phrase גַּיד הַנָּשֶׁה , Gid Han-Nasheh, "the sinew that shrank" (Genesis 32:33), i.e. the Nervus Ischiadicus, or thigh cord (Gesenius, Thesaur. p. 921). Josephus renders it the Broad Nerve ( Νεῦρον Πλατύ , Ant. 1, 10, 2), being that which is on the thigh ( עִל כִּ הִיָּרֵךְ ), extending from the knee upwards, and in fact but a continuation of that along the shin (Rosenmuller, Hand. D. Anatomie, 6th ed. p. 519). Many understand by it the hamstring, or Tendo Achillis ; but this is no proper nerve nor muscle. Modern Jews, in general, regard this part, even of clean animals, to be inedible, although the Mosaic law contains no prohibition on the subject. For the Talmudic prescription see the Mishna (Cholin, 7). The rabbins mostly understand the sinews of the hips to be intended (see Philippson, ad loc.),
