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," Luke 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," Psalms 5:9); the spiritual ("my law in their inward parts," Jeremiah 31:33). Its adverbial equivalent in Biblical use is "inwardly." INWARD MAN (which see) is identical in meaning.

Dwight M. Pratt

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Edited by James Orr, published in 1939 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.