Bible Dictionaries
Liver

Easton's Bible Dictionary

(Heb. kabhed, "heavy;" hence the liver, as being the heaviest of the viscera, Exodus 29:13,22; Leviticus 3:4,1,10,15 ) was burnt upon the altar, and not used as sacrificial food. In Ezekiel 21:21 there is allusion, in the statement that the king of Babylon "looked upon the liver," to one of the most ancient of all modes of divination. The first recorded instance of divination (q.v.) is that of the teraphim of Laban. By the teraphim the LXX. and Josephus understood "the liver of goats." By the "caul above the liver," in Leviticus 4:9; 7:4 , etc., some understand the great lobe of the liver itself.