Roland suggests
In Ezekiel 24:3-4 it reads:
Set on the pot, set it on
pour in water also;
put in it pieces of flesh,
all the good pieces,
prairie oyster and shoulder;
fill it with choice bones.
Now the usual translation of yarekh here is ‘thigh’, but given the polemical context and the semantic cluster of the term, I would suggest that ‘prairie oyster’ is perfectly viable.
The problem here is twofold- first, יָרֵךְ means ‘the fleshy portion of the upper thigh: posterior’ – and only when in combination with taḥat does it mean ‘area of sexual organs’; Gn 24:2, 9. It is also modified thusly – kaf yārēk, meaning ‘hip-socket’ in Gn 32:26, 33. Hence, to be fair to the word itself and its usage in the Hebrew Bible, Roland here reads in what he thinks may be there without the requisite modifier such a reading needs.
And second- I’m not sure what a ‘prairie’ oyster is, unless it’s what we here in the States call a ‘mountain oyster’. But – again- if that were what Ezekiel had in mind, he surely possessed a vocabulary sufficient to muster up use of אֶשֶׁךְ (or it’s Ugaritic cognate ušk). He could even have used the Aramaic פחתין had he wished.
So in short, though Roland’s reading is interesting, it isn’t borne out by the text and it isn’t necessary and most importantly, perhaps, because of the vagaries of English, it isn’t even particularly clear.
