# H3409 - yarek

<!-- type: lexicon | created: 2026-10-22 | updated: 2026-10-22 -->

**Strong's:** [H3409](https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h3409/) · BLB lookup
**Pronunciation:** yaw-rake'
**Part of speech:** feminine noun
**LXX equivalent:** μηρός (*mēros*), "thigh"

## Semantic range (Brown-Driver-Briggs)

1. **Thigh, hip**, the upper leg as a body part: Ehud straps his sword "upon his right thigh" ([Judges 3:16](/codex/judges-3-16/)); Jacob's hip is struck at the Jabbok ([Genesis 32:25](/codex/genesis-32-25/), [32](/codex/genesis-32-32/)).
2. **Loins, the generative region**, by euphemism: descendants "came out of his loins," literally "out of his thigh" ([Genesis 46:26](/codex/genesis-46-26/); [Exodus 1:5](/codex/exodus-1-5/); [Judges 8:30](/codex/judges-8-30/)).
3. **The place of oath-taking**: the hand placed "under the thigh" to swear ([Genesis 24:2](/codex/genesis-24-2/), [9](/codex/genesis-24-9/); [47:29](/codex/genesis-47-29/)), an oath sworn on the source of a man's offspring.
4. **Side, base** of an object, by extension: the shaft or base of the tabernacle lampstand ([Exodus 25:31](/codex/exodus-25-31/)) and the side of the altar ([Leviticus 1:11](/codex/leviticus-1-11/)).

## Theological force

*Yārēk* matters apologetically because of one passage. In the *sotah* ordeal of [Numbers 5:11-31](/codex/numbers-5-11-31/), the curse on a guilty wife is that her *yārēk* "falls" (*nōpelet*, from *nāpal*, "to fall") and her *beṭen* (belly) swells (vv. 21, 22, 27). Some modern translations render the phrase as a miscarriage, and the claim that "God commanded abortion" rests on that rendering.

The word's range explains why most formal translations keep "thigh" and why the curse reads most naturally as a fertility curse:

- The thigh stands for the generative organs in the oath scenes and the "came out of his thigh" idiom. A *falling* thigh is an image of reproductive failure.
- The passage's contrast term is conception: the innocent woman "shall be free, and shall conceive seed" ([Numbers 5:28](/codex/numbers-5-28/), ASV).
- *Yārēk* is the woman's own body, not a child. The thing that falls is her thigh; no fetus is the subject of the verb.

The word is never used for the womb itself (that is *reḥem*) or for a miscarried child (that is *nēpel*, as in [Job 3:16](/codex/job-3-16/)). See [Numbers 5 Commands Abortion Objection Defeater](/codex/numbers-5-commands-abortion-objection-defeater/) for the full case.

## Notable verses

- **[Genesis 24:2](/codex/genesis-24-2/), [9](/codex/genesis-24-9/)**, Abraham's servant swears with his hand "under the thigh"
- **[Genesis 32:25](/codex/genesis-32-25/), [32](/codex/genesis-32-32/)**, Jacob's hip socket touched at the Jabbok; the origin of Israel's custom about the sinew of the hip
- **[Genesis 46:26](/codex/genesis-46-26/)**, "all the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, that came out of his loins" (ASV), Hebrew "out of his thigh"
- **[Exodus 1:5](/codex/exodus-1-5/)**, the same idiom for Jacob's descendants
- **[Numbers 5:21](/codex/numbers-5-21/), [22](/codex/numbers-5-22/), [27](/codex/numbers-5-27/)**, the "falling thigh" of the *sotah* curse
- **[Judges 3:16](/codex/judges-3-16/), [21](/codex/judges-3-21/)**, Ehud's sword on his right thigh
- **[Psalm 45:3](/codex/psalms-45-3/)**, the king girds his sword on his thigh

## See also

- [Numbers 5.11-31](/codex/numbers-5-11-31/), the *sotah* passage where the word is contested
- [Numbers 5 Commands Abortion Objection Defeater](/codex/numbers-5-commands-abortion-objection-defeater/), why the "falling thigh" is not an abortion
- [H7068 - qinah](/codex/h7068-qinah/), the "spirit of jealousy" that triggers the ordeal
- [Genesis 24.2-3](/codex/genesis-24-2-3/), the oath under the thigh