Inward Part

INWARD PART [ISBE]

INWARD PART - A symbolic expression in the Old Testament represented by three Hebrew words: chedher, "chamber," hence, inmost bowels or breast; tuchoth, "the reins"; qerebh, "midst," "middle," hence, heart. Once in the New Testament (esothen, "from within," Lk 11:39). The viscera (heart, liver, kidneys) were supposed by the ancients to be the seat of the mind, feelings, affections: the highest organs of the psyche, "the soul." The term includes the intellect ("wisdom in the inward parts," Job 38:36); the moral nature ("inward part is very wickedness," Ps 5:9); the spiritual ("my law in their inward parts," Jer 31:33). Its adverbial equivalent in Biblical use is "inwardly." INWARD MAN (which see) is identical in meaning.

Dwight M. Pratt