HEART, BIBLICAL USAGE: The Hebrew lebh or lebhabh
and the Greek kardia ("heart") are never used in the Bible of
animals except in the passages
Job xli. 24
and
Dan. iv. 16,
where the
reference is psychological, not physiological.
Deut. iv. 11
speaks of
the heart of heaven,
II Sam. xviii. 14
of the heart of an oak,
Ex. xv. 8
and other passages of the heart of the sea, and
Matt. xii. 40
of the heart of the earth, all designating the interior
parts of the objects. In nearly all passages where the word occurs,
however, it is used of man's heart, and generally in the
psychological sense
as the organ by which he feels, thinks, and
wills. The terms lebh, lebhabh, kardia, which never mean
"self," as does nephesh, are employed to express the ethical
qualities which the Greeks ascribed to the soul.
As an organ of the body the heart is the seat of life, and is
concerned in the receipt of impressions and the issuance of
expressions of personal life. Strengthening and revival which come
from the
partaking of food bring strength and comfort to the heart
(Gen. xviii. 5;
Judges xix. 5, 8),
and excess affects the heart
unfavorably
(Luke xxi. 34).
Indeed, the heart is the center of
personal life in all its relations
(Prov. iv. 23);
consequently, up to
a certain limit, kardia, psyche, and pneuma, "spirit,"
may be used as synonyms, and the reception of joy, sorrow, emotion,
alarm is ascribed to the heart (e.g.,
Prov. xii. 25)
or to the soul
(Gen. x11. 8). The unstable man is called dipsychos,
"double-minded," and to him is given a double heart
(Ecclus. i. 28).
The heart is to be purified
(James iv. 8),
so is the soul
(I Pet. i. 22),
just as depression is ascribed to the soul in
Pa. xlii. 5, and to the heart in Pa. lxii. 8. But each of these terms
has its peculiarities of usage. Man is said to lose his soul, never
his heart. Where the two are bound together in some action, especially
if that be religious, as in the case of lovingGod, it is not a mere
heaping together of synonyms, but the expression of action involving
the entire personality. Nabal's heart is said to have died
(I Sam. xxv. 37),
though his actual death did not occur till ten days
afterward (verse 38). So one may speak of the heart of the soul, but
never of the soul of the heart, since the psyche is the subject
of life while the kardia is only an organ.
The relations and distinctions between heart and spirit recall those
between spirit and soul. The soul is what it is through the spirit
which exists in it as the life-principle, so
that within certain
bounds each may stand for the other (see
Soul and Spirit). Since the
personal life is limited by the spirit and is mediated through the
heart, the activities of the spirit are sought in the heart, and
to it
then may be ascribed the properties of the spirit, and spirit and
heart may be paralleled
(Ps. xxxiv. 18).
While
Acts xix. 21
ascribes
purpose to the soul,
II Cor. ix. 7
ascribes it to the heart. On the
other hand, serving God in the spirit
(Rom. i. 9)
is not quite the
same as serving him with the heart. Exchange between spirit and heart
is
excluded when the heart appears as the place of that activity of
the spirit the result of which is conscience
(I Sam. xxiv. 5).
Heart
and flesh are differentiated so that sin is ascribed to the heart,
though both are united in
Ezek. xliv. 7.
Delitzach finds in
Ps. xvi. 9
an Old Testament trichotomy, but really in the first clause heart and
soul are united to express as strongly as possible the inner
exultation. Heart is in distinction from soul the place where the
whole personal life is concentrated, where is concealed the personal
individual essence, and whence proceed the evidences of personal
character in good or evil
(Matt. xv. 8).
With the heart man approaches
God and Christ rests in him, possesses him, so that he lives and
dwells in man
(Eph. iii. 17;
Gal. ii. 20).
Similarly, estrangement
from God is of the heart
(Eph. iv. 18;
Isa. i. 5).
In like manner the
individual character is expressed in terms of the heart in respect to
purity, humility, uncircumcision, unrighteousness, and the like. God
himself
is called mighty in heart
(Job xxxvi. 5),
and he who seeks God
and in faith relies upon him is called strong in heart
(Ps. lxxviii. 8).
The heart is the treasury of good and evil
(Matt. xii. 34-35);
it is
the organ for the reception of
God's word and of the gift of the Holy Spirit
(
Matt. xiii. 19).
But if it is the seat of God's activ ity and of
that of his word and spirit, so is it of Satan's activity
(
John xiii. 2),
and it resists God and becomes hardened
(
Acts xxviii. 27).
Similarly, out of it proceeds love for God and man. It is
the organ of faith or unfaith (Roe. x. 9), of decision
(
Acts v. 4),
and of thought
(
Isa. x. 7).
In this sense Johannean and Pauline usage
equates nous and
dianoia; since the
nous as the organ
of the spirit is also a function of the heart, it is conceivable that
the apostle opposes
nous to
sarx, "flesh" (Roe.
vii. 25), because for his purpose the opposition between
sarx
and
kardia seemed too inclusive. In the heart of man through
his conscience is written the work of the law (Roe. ii. 15), and God
has placed eternity in the heart
(
Eccles. iii. 11).
But the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth (Gem. viii. 21),
and whatever makes man impure proceeds from his heart
(
Mark vii. 21).
Here resides that double personality (Rom. vii.) by which
man is either senseless (Roe. i. 21) or impenitent (Roe. ii. 5) or
uncircumcised in heart
(
Acts vii. 51),
or, on the other side, is honest and good
(
Luke viii. 15).
(H. Cremer.)
Bibliography:
F. Delitasoh, System der biblischen Psychologie, Leipsic, 1881,
Eng transl., Edinburgh, 1887; C. H. Zeller Kurze Seelenlshre, Calw, 1850;
J. G. Krumm, De notionibus psychologies
Paulinis, chap. iii., Giessen, 1858; J. T. Beck, Umriss der biblischen Seelenlshre, Stuttgart, 1871;
idem Outlines of Biblical Psychology, pp 78-148, Edinburgh,
1877; G. F. Oehler, Theology of O. T., i. 221 sqq., ii. 449, ib. 1874-75;
B. Weiss, Biblical Theology of N. T., ib. 1882-83;
E. Womer, Biblische Anthropologic, II., xi. 3, Stuttgart, 1887;
K. Fischer, Biblische Psychologie, Biologic und Padapogik, pp
20 sqq., Gotha, 1889; H. Schultz, O. T. Theology, ii. 248 sqq., London, 1892;
W. Beyschlag, N. T. Theology, consult Index, Edinburgh, 1896;
C. A. Briggs, in Semitic Studies in Memory of A. Kohut,
pp. 94-105, London, 1897; T. Simon, Die Psychologie des Aposteis Paulus, pp. 24 sqq,
Göttingen, 1897; G. Waller, Biblical View of the Soul, London, 1904;
DB. ii. 317-318; EB, ii. 1981-82;
JE, vi. 295-296; DCG i.
709-711; and the lexicons under the words cited in the text.