flak (mappal, a word of uncertain meaning):
It is used in the sense of "refuse (husks) of the wheat" inAm 8:6. With regard to the body we find it used inJob 41:23in the description of leviathan (the crocodile): "The flakes of his flesh are joined together: they are firm upon him; they cannot be moved." Baethgen in Kautzsch's translation of the Old Testament translates "Wampen," i.e. the collops or lateral folds of flesh and armored skin. A better translation would perhaps be: "the horny epidermic scales" of the body, differentiated from the bony dermal scutes of the back (Hebrew "channels of shields," "courses of scales"), which are mentioned inJob 41:15margin.
H. L. E. Luering