“I was given a thorn in my flesh”
So to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. (2 Corinthians 12:7 BSB)
What it sounds like today
'Thorn in the flesh' now means any minor irritation.
The cultural key
The word (skolops) is stronger than garden thorns: a stake or splinter, something driven in. Scripture's own idiom uses thorns for harassing enemies ('thorns in your eyes,' Numbers 33:55), which feeds one major reading: the thorn as Paul's human opponents. The other main family of readings is a chronic ailment, with recurring guesses at his eyes (the Galatians 'would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me,' and see his 'large letters'). Paul left it unnamed, prayed three times for removal, and received instead the sentence the letter is famous for: 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'
Recovered meaning
An affliction deliberately left anonymous, which is why every sufferer since has been able to write a name into the blank. The entry's honest verdict: unknown by design, and the answer Paul got matters more than the diagnosis he withheld.