BOWELS

The intestines or entrails. The word may refer to the deep or remote part of anything, as the “bowels” of the earth. The Hebrew words frequently translated “bowels” in the older Bible versions are also rendered in more modern translations as “intestines,” or “entrails,” where the context clearly indicates that they have that connotation. (Compare 2 Samuel 20:10; 2 Chronicles 21:15, 18, 19; Job 20:14, in various Bible versions.) Where the Hebrew terms are not confined to “intestines” the English words “belly,” “inward parts,” “body,” “stomach,” “womb,” and related expressions are sometimes used in modern translations.—Gen. 15:4; 25:23; Ps. 71:6; Isa. 16:11; 49:1.

Physical food is assimilated by the intestines. This fact was metaphorically used to represent mental or spiritual digestion when in vision, Ezekiel was told to eat a scroll, filling his intestines or bowels with it. Ezekiel was to gain spiritual strength by meditating upon and storing in his memory the words written in the scroll. He was thereby nourished spiritually and provided with a message to speak.—Ezek. 3:1-6; compare Revelation 10:8-10.

Since deep emotions have a marked effect on one’s literal bowels, the same Hebrew words or forms of the words are sometimes used figuratively as “inward emotions,” “pity,” “inward parts,” “mercies” and the like, as at Genesis 43:14, 30; Lamentations 3:22; Isaiah 48:19.

In the Christian Greek Scriptures the word splagʹkhna literally means “bowels.” It is used once (in the plural) to refer to the literal intestines. (Acts 1:18) Elsewhere the forms of the word denote “tender affections” and similar emotions.—2 Cor. 6:12; Phil. 1:8; 2:1; Col. 3:12; 1 John 3:17.