Liver

Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible

Liver ( kâbçdh ). 1 . In the great majority of cases where the liver is mentioned, it is in connexion with the law of sacrifice as prescribed in P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] (  Exodus 29:13;   Exodus 29:22 ,   Leviticus 3:4;   Leviticus 3:10;   Leviticus 3:16 etc.), and always in association with the caul ( yôthereth ). The LXX [Note: Septuagint.] , followed by Josephus ( Ant . III. ix. 2), takes yôthereth to be a lobe of the liver; but it is now agreed that it denotes the fatty mass at the opening of that organ. According to Semitic ideas, a peculiar holiness belonged to the liver and kidneys (wh. see), together with the fat attached to them; the reason being that they were regarded as the special seats not only of emotion but of life itself. Because of its sacredness the liver with its fat was not to be eaten, but was to be offered in sacrifice to J″ [Note: Jahweh.] . 2 .  Proverbs 7:23 ‘till a dart strike through his liver,’   Lamentations 2:11 ‘my liver is poured upon the earth’ (cf.   Job 16:13 ‘he poureth out my gall upon the ground’) are further illustrations of the physiological ideas referred to above. Either they are strong expressions for a deadly disease, or they denote sorrowful emotion of the most poignant kind. 3 . In   Ezekiel 21:21 the king of Babylon, at the parting of the way, ‘looked in the liver’ as one of the three forms of divination he employed. 4 . In Tob 6:4-16; Tob 8:2 the liver of a fish is used for the purpose of exorcism. See, further, art. Magic Divination and Sorcery, p. 568 b .

J. C. Lambert.

Morrish Bible Dictionary

The large and heavy gland that secretes the bile. In the sacrifices it is named only to point out the caul which is above it.  Exodus 29:13,22;  Leviticus 3:4 , etc. To be wounded in the liver is fatal.  Proverbs 7:23 . The liver being poured out is symbolical of deep anguish.  Lamentations 2:11 : cf.  Job 16:13 . Among the heathen the liver was one of the parts of an animal that were examined in order to foretell events, as practised by the king of Babylon.  Ezekiel 21:21 .

Webster's Dictionary

(1): ( n.) A very large glandular and vascular organ in the visceral cavity of all vertebrates.

(2): ( n.) One who, or that which, lives.

(3): ( n.) A resident; a dweller; as, a liver in Brooklyn.

(4): ( n.) One whose course of life has some marked characteristic (expressed by an adjective); as, a free liver.

(5): ( n.) The glossy ibis (Ibis falcinellus); - said to have given its name to the city of Liverpool.

King James Dictionary

LIV'ER, n. One who lives.

And try if life be worth the liver's care.

It is often used with a word of qualification as a high liver a loose liver, &c.

LIV'ER, n.

A viscus or intestine of considerable size and of a reddish color, convex on the anterior and superior side, and of an unequal surface on the inferior and posterior side. It is situated under the false ribs, in the right hypochondrium. It consists of two lobes, of a glandular substance, and destined for the secretion of the bile.

Holman Bible Dictionary

 Leviticus 3:4 3:10 3:15 Ezekiel 21:21 Lamentations 2:11 Genesis 49:6 Psalm 16:9 Psalm 57:8

Easton's Bible Dictionary

 Exodus 29:13,22 Leviticus 3:4,1,10,15 Ezekiel 21:21  Leviticus 4:9 7:4

American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

 Leviticus 3:4 . This organ in man was regarded by the ancients as the seat of the passions. Idolaters consulted the liver of the victim offered in sacrifice, for purposes of divination,  Ezekiel 21:21 .

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

( כָּבֵד , Akbesd', so called as being the Heaviest of the viscera) occurs in  Exodus 29:13;  Exodus 29:22;  Leviticus 3:4;  Leviticus 3:10;  Leviticus 3:15;  Leviticus 4:9;  Leviticus 7:4;  Leviticus 8:16;  Leviticus 8:25;  Leviticus 9:10;  Leviticus 9:19;  Proverbs 7:23;  Lamentations 2:11;  Ezekiel 21:21. In the Pentateuch it forms part of the phrase translated in the Authorized Version "the caul that is above the liver," but which Gesenius (Thesaur. Heb. pages 645, 646), reasoning from the root, understands to be the great lobe of the liver itself rather than the caul over it, which latter, he observes, is inconsiderable in size, and has but little fat. Jahn thinks the smaller lobe to be meant. The phrase is also rendered in the Sept. "the lobe or lower pendent of the liver," the chief object of attention in the art of hepatoscopy, or divination by the liver, among the ancients. (Jerome gives "the net of the liver," "the suet," and "the fat;" see Bochart. Hieroz. 1:498.) (See Caul).

It appears from the same passages that it was burnt upon the altar, and not eaten as sacrificial food (Jahn, Bibl. Archaeol. § 378, n. 7). The liver was supposed by the ancient Greeks and Romans to be the seat of the passions pride, love, etc. (see Anacreon, Ode 3, fin.; Theocritus, Idyll. 11:16; Horace, Carri. 1:13, 4; 25, 15; 4:1, 12; and the Notes of the Delphin edition. Comp. also Persius, Sat. v. 129; Juvenal, Sat. 5:647). Some have argued that the same symbol prevailed among the Jews (rendering כְּבֹדַי , in  Genesis 49:6, "my Liver," instead of "my honor," Sept. Τὰ Ἣπατακ ; compare the Hebrew of  Psalms 16:9;  Psalms 57:9;  Psalms 108:2), but Gesenius (Hebr. Lex. s.v. כָּבוֹד ) denies this signification in those passages. Wounds in the liver were supposed to be mortal; thus the expression in  Proverbs 7:23, "a dart through his liver," and  Lamentations 2:11, "my liver is poured out upon the earth," are each of them a periphrasis for death itself. tEschylus uses a similar phrase to describe a mortal wound (Agamemnon, 1:442). (See Heart).

The passage in  Ezekiel 21:21 contains an interesting reference to the most ancient of all modes of divination, by the inspection of the viscera of animals, and even of mankind, sacrificially slaughtered for the purpose. It is there said that the king of Babylon, among other modes of divination referred to in the same verse, "looked upon the liver." The liver was always considered the most important organ in the ancient art of Extispicium, or divination by the entrails. Philostratus felicitously describes it as "the prophesying tripod of all divination" (Life Of Apollonius, 8:7, 5). The rules by which the Greeks and Romans judged of it are amply detailed in Adams's Romuan Antiquities, page 261 sq. (Lond. 1834), and in Potter's Archaologia Graeca, 1:316 (Lond. 1775). Vitruvius suggests a plausible theory of the first rise of hepatoscopy. He says the ancients inspected the livers of those animals which frequented the places where they wished to settle, and if they found the liver, to which they chiefly ascribed the process of sangnification, was injured, they concluded that the water and nourishment collected in such localities were unwholesome (1:4). But divination is coeval and coextensive with a belief in the divinity. Cicero ascribes divination by this and other means to what he calls "the heroic ages," by which term we know he means a period antecedent to all historical documents (De Dirinationze). Prometheus, in the play of that title (1:474 sq.), lays claim to having taught mankind the different kinds of divination, and that of extispicy among the rest; and Prometheus, according to Servius (ad Virg. Ecl. 6:42), instructed the Assyrians; and we know from sacred record that Assyria was one, of the countries first peopled. It is further important to remark that the first recorded instance of divination is that of the teraphim of Laban, a native of Padan-Aram, a district bordering on that country ( 1 Samuel 19:13;  1 Samuel 19:16), but by which teraphim both the Sept. and Josephus understood "the Liver of goats" (Ant. 6:11, 4). (See Terapeism). See generally Whiston's Josephus, page 169, note (Edinb. 1828); Bochart, 1:41, De Caprarum Nominibus; Encyclopaedia Metropolitanal, s.v. Divination; Rosenm Ü ller's Scholia on the several passages referred to; Perizonius, Ad Aelian. 2:31; Peucer, De Praecipuis Divinationum Generibus, etc. (Wittemberg, 1560). (See Divination).

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

liv´ẽr ( כּבד , ḳābhēdh , derived from a root meaning "to be heavy," being the heaviest of the viscera; Septuagint ἤπαρ , hḗpar ): The word is usually joined with the Hebrew yōthereth (see Caul ) ( Exodus 29:13 ,  Exodus 29:22;  Leviticus 9:10 ,  Leviticus 9:19 ) as a special portion set aside for the burnt offering.

This represents the large lobe or flap of the liver, λοβὸς τοῦ ἤπατος , lobós toú hḗpatos (thus, Septuagint and Josephus, Ant. , III, ix, 2). Others, however, interpret it as the membrane which covers the upper part of the liver, sometimes called the "lesser omenturn." Thus, the Vulgate: reticulurn iecoris . It extends from the fissures of the liver to the curve of the stomach. Still others consider it to be the "fatty mass at the opening of the liver, which reaches to the kidneys and becomes visible upon the removal of the lesser omentum or membrane" (Driver and White, Leviticus , 65).

As in the scholastic psychology of the Middle Ages, the liver played an important part in the science of Semitic peoples. It was the seat of feeling, and thus became synonymous with temper, disposition, character (compare Assyrian kabittu , "liver", "temper," "character," and Arabic kabid , vulgar kibdi ). Thus, Jeremiah expresses his profound grief with the words: "My liver is poured upon the earth, because of the destruction of the daughter of my people" (  Lamentations 2:11 ). The liver is also considered one of the most important and vital parts of the body (compare Virgil, cerebrum , iecur domicilia vitae ). A hurt in it is equivalent to death. So we find the fate of a man enticed by the flattering of a loose woman compared to that of the ox that "goeth to the slaughter ... till an arrow strike through his liver; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life" ( Proverbs 7:22 ,  Proverbs 7:23; the rest of the verse is obscure as to its meaning).

In a few passages of the Old Testament, kābhēdh ("liver") and kābhōdh ("glory") have been confounded, and we are in uncertainty as to the right translation Several authors, to give but one example, would read kābhēdh in   Psalm 16:9 , for reasons of Hebrew poetical parallelism: "Therefore my heart is glad and my liver (English Versions of the Bible, "glory") rejoiceth." While this is quite possible, it is not easy to decide, as according to Jewish interpretation "my glory" is synonymous with "my soul," which would present as proper a parallelism.

The liver has always played an important role in heathen divination, of which we have many examples in old and modern times among the Greeks, Etrurians, Romans and now among African tribes. The prophet Ezekiel gives us a Biblical instance. The king of Babylon, who had been seeking to find out whether he should attack Jerusalem, inquired by shaking "arrows to and fro, he consulted the teraphim, he looked in the liver" ( Ezekiel 21:21 (Hebrew 21:26); compare Tobit 6:4 ff; 8:2). See Astrology , 3; Divination .

Kitto's Popular Cyclopedia of Biblial Literature

Liver occurs in;;;;;;;;;;;;; . In all the instances where the word occurs in the Pentateuch, it forms part of the phrase translated in the Authorized Version 'the caul that is above the liver,' but which Gesenius understands to be the great lobe of the liver itself, rather than the caul over it. Jahn thinks the smaller lobe is meant. It appears from the same passages that it was burnt upon the altar, and not eaten as sacrificial food. The liver was supposed by the ancient Jews, Greeks, and Romans, to be the seat of the passions, pride, love, etc. Thus, , 'with their assembly let not' literally 'my liver be united.' Wounds in the liver were supposed to be mortal; thus the expressions in , 'a dart through his liver,' and , 'my liver is poured out upon the earth,' are each of them a periphrasis for death itself. The passage in Ezekiel contains an interesting reference to the most ancient of all modes of divination, by the inspection of the viscera of animals and even of mankind sacrificially slaughtered for the purpose. It is there said that the king of Babylon, among other modes of divination, referred to in the same verse, 'looked upon the liver.' The liver was always considered the most important organ in the ancient art of divination by the entrails. Philostratus felicitously describes it as 'the prophesying tripod of all divination.' It is an interesting inquiry how this regard to it originated. Vitruvius suggests a plausible theory of the first rise of divination by the liver. He says the ancients inspected the livers of those animals which frequented the places where they wished to settle; and if they found the liver, to which they chiefly ascribed the process of sanguification, was injured, they concluded that the water and nourishment collected in such localities were unwholesome . But divination is coeval and coextensive with a belief in the divinity. We know that as early as the days of Cain and Abel there were certain means of communication between God and man, and that those means were connected with the sacrifice of animals; and we prefer to consider those means as the source of divination in later ages, conceiving that when the real tokens of the divine interest with which the primitive families of man were favored ceased, in consequence of the multiplying of human transgressions, their descendants endeavored to obtain counsel and information by the same external observances. We believe that thus only will the minute resemblances be accounted for, which we discover between the different methods of divination, utterly untraceable to reason, but which have prevailed from unknown antiquity among the most distant regions. It is further important to remark that the first recorded instance of divination is that of the teraphim of Laban, a native of Padan-aram, a district bordering on that country , but by which teraphim both the Sept. and Josephus understood 'the liver of goats.'