Language Studies

Hebrew Thoughts

Kâbhêdh - כָּבֵד (Strong's #3516)
Liver

The word כָּבֵד kâbhêdh (Strong's #3516) is mainly used in describing the sacrificial practice of the Levitical priesthood including the sin offering (Leviticus 9:10), 9 of its 14 occurrences are found in Leviticus 3-9. Outside of this we have similar uses in the crude but practical language of Exodus 29:13, "And you shall take all the fat that covers the entrails, the fatty lobe attached to the liver, and the two kidneys and the fat that is on them, and burn them on the altar".

כָּבֵד kâbhêdh derives from כָּבַד kâbhadh (Strong's #3513) "to be heavy or weighty" which can be used to express the bestowing of honour and glory through greatness or abundance, or equally to be burdensome via the idea of being "weighed down". Another more familiar derivative is כָּבוּד kâbhôdh "glory" (Strong's #3515), occuring some 200 times. So כָּבֵד kâbhêdh derives from כָּבַד kâbhadh's idea of weight since anatomically the "liver" is the heaviest organ, typically weighing around 100g more than the brain. The normal healthy adult liver weighs 1200-1600g, 2-3% of the total weight of the body, and receives about a third of the heart's blood flow. Under cirrhosis of the liver, 70% of the occurrences of which are caused by alcoholism, the liver can reach weights in excess of 2kg before shrinking back to a useless mass of less than 1kg.

Examination of the liver during postmortem examination, sacrifice, divination or mummification, meant that early civilisations knew it was the heaviest organ and many thought the seat of the mind. In ancient Egypt the liver was one of four organs (curiously not including the brain or heart) preserved during the mummification process. The human-headed canopic jar, representing Imseti, contained the liver and was traditionally protected by the goddess Isis.

Apart from the Greeks, Etruscans and Romans, Ancient Sumer and Babylon both practiced liver divination and would ask a yes/no question prior to the sacrifice of a sheep and the inspection of the appearance of twelve different parts of its liver. We read of this in the Bible in Ezekiel concerning the king of Bablyon:

"For the king of Babylon stands at the parting of the road, at the fork of the two roads, to use divination: he shakes the arrows, he consults the images (terâphîm), he looks at the liver." (Ezekiel 21:21)

That the liver was considered one of the seats of life is obvious from its use in fortune telling and ancient writings. In Ancient Near Eastern Akkadian and Ugaritic texts such as the Ras Shamra tablets the "heart" and "liver" and paralleled as organs of emotion:

Her liver [kbd] swells with laughter
Her heart [lb] fills up with joy,
Anath's liver exults.^F1

The liver may be seen as a seat of life in Proverbs 7:23, describing the metaphorical fate of one lured by a harlot, "till an arrow struck his liver", which some versions render by "entrails" or "heart" (NLT).

Even more clear is this mourning passage in Lamentations:

"Mine eyes do fail with tears, my bowels are troubled, my liver is poured upon the earth, for the destruction of the daughter of my people" (Lamentations 2:11, KJV)

Here, the NKJV and NRSV use "bile" and others use "heart" (NAS, NIV, RSV) and which the Greek Septuagint confuses with the similarly spelled word for "glory". Clearly, the intention is the emotional longings which we now metaphorically refer to the heart and which ancient peoples referred to the bowels, liver and intestines.

Just as the Septuagint confused "liver" and "glory" in Lamentations so in the Hebrew Psalms we appear to have the reverse:

"Therefore / my heart / is glad,
And / my glory / rejoices;
Also / my flesh / will rest in safety" (Psalm 16:9)

When laid out, as above, in poetic parallelism where each phrase echoes another's meaning but with different wording, we can see the parallel terminology. Heart, glory and flesh, are to be seen as Hebrew euphemisms for the self, "me", expressed through various bodily metaphors. The phrase "my glory" could equally be "my liver". Compare this with Psalm 7:5 where again the Hebrew word "glory/liver" appears paralleled with the Hebrew words for soul and life.

FOOTNOTES:
F1: Ras Shamra is in modern Syria but was originally part of the Canaanite empire, contemporary with Abraham through to Moses; Text cited from UT, Anath II:25-26.

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