THIEVES (thys), (Is. i:23; Luke xxii:52; Mark xv:27; Matt. xxvii:38, 44). See THEFT; THIEF. THIGH (thi), (Heb. 1::,yaw-rake'; Gr. wp6s, may-ros'), the part of the human body between the knee and the trunk.
It occurs in Gen. xxxii :25, 31, 32; Judg. 16, 21; Ps. xlv :3; Cant. iii :8. Putting the hand under the thigh appears to have been a very an cient custom, upon occasion of taking an oath to any one. Abraham required this of the oldest servant of his house, when he made him swear that he would not take a wife for Isaac of the daughters of the Canaanites (Gen. xxiv :2-9). Ja cob required it of his son Joseph, when he bound him by oath not to bury him in Egypt, but with his fathers in the land of Canaan (xlvii :29-3x). The origin, form, and import of this ceremony in taking an oath, are very doubtful.
A curse pronounced upon an unfaithful wife was that her thigh should rot (Num. v :21).
Figurative. (1) To smite "hip and thigh" was expressive of cruel slaughter (Judg. xv :8). (a) To uncover the thigh was the symbol of feminine immodesty (Is. xlvii :2). (3) Smiting on the thigh denotes penitence (Jer. xxxi:x9), grief, and mourning (Ezek. xxi :12). (4) To have a name written on the thigh, imports that the person's fame and victory are publicly known, and shall be marked in his spiritual seed (Rev. xix:i6). (5) The rulers and great men of Ju dah, in which the strength of the nation consisted, are the thigh and shoulder of flesh put into Je rusalem, the boiling pot of God's judgments, to be destroyed (Ezek. xxiv :4). (6) The tw'o brazen thighs of Nebuchadnezzar's visionary im age, denote the two powerful kingdoms of Egypt and Syria, into which the belly-like empire of Alex ander was divided after his death (Dan. ii:32).