Thinking in terms of metonymies is also such a common cognitive tool that modern readers seldom notice them in the Bible. In Genesis 22:17, God promises Abraham that his descendants will "possess the gate of their enemies. Gate a part of an ancient city, is here a metonymy for an entire city (see also Gen 24:60; Matt 7:13). gate brought up frames of meaning about the activities typically associated with city gates, such as legal proceedings and governing. As the physical structure of the gates and cities changed over the centuries, governing was no longer done at the gates, so the prototypical activities and meaning associated with them changed. Jesus said that "scribes and Pharisees sit on Moses' chair" (Matt 23:1). Here chair stands for the rulers and governance. It also prompts a frame with a slightly different meaning than that for modern Western readers. Modern Western people sit when eating, or relaxing whereas most people in the ancient world would squat or lay down to do these. Chairs were for those in authority. A sceptre, a key object used by a ruler, can stand for the ruler himself, as in Num 24:17: "a sceptre will rise out of Israel" (see also Gen 49:10).
Parts of the body are often used metonymically. Flesh, the most visible part of the body, typically stands for humans in the Bible (e.g., Jer 17:5). In English, the word ear the most salient body part associated with hearing, can stand for hearing itself ("She has a good ear for musical talent"). In the Bible, both human and divine ears are used metonymically for hearing (2 Sam 22:7; Ps 34:15; 1 Pet 3:12). Eye can stand for the process of vision (Gen 33:5; Ps 34:15). English uses hand to stand for assistance or control ("give me a hand," "the situation got out of hand"). The most salient body part used for physically grabbing objects stands for the entire operation. In the Bible, the hands of both humans and God can stand for assistance or control (Ps 119:109, 173; Exod 2:19; 3:20).
When Jesus gives bread to the disciples and says, "Take, eat: This is my body" (Matt 26:26), the bread metonymically stands for his body, which stands for his life given for their sustenance. Paul uses it in the same way when he says that the bread Christians break is "sharing in the body of Christ" (1 Cor 10:16). He continues: "Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread" (17). (John Sanders, Theology in the Flesh: How Embodiment and Culture Shape the Way We Think about Truth, Morality, and God [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016], 226-27)
