All: The inner life in Scripture's own words

The inner life in Scripture's own words

racham: the womb and mercy are the same root

What the lexicon says. Strong's 1890 entry for רַחַם (racham) reads: "Compassion (in the plural); by extension, the womb (as cherishing the fetus); by implication, a maiden." Its list of King James renderings runs "bowels, compassion, damsel, tender love, (great, tender) mercy, pity, womb", one Hebrew word, and English needs seven words for it.

What the text does with it. Isaiah puts the mercy sense and a second body word side by side: "the sounding of thy bowels and of thy mercies toward me" (Isaiah 63:15, KJV); the ASV, choosing differently, prints "the yearning of thy heart and thy compassions are restrained toward me" (Isaiah 63:15, ASV).

The counts, split. The spelling tagged H7356A and glossed "womb" is in 5 verses; the sibling spelling H7356B is in 39, 44 in all.

The Greek picks the same picture up. The Septuagint uses σπλάγχνα for this word at Proverbs 12:10 (Abbott-Smith, entry σπλάγχνον), which is the word the New Testament uses for compassion.

Sources: Isaiah 63:15 (KJV and ASV); Strong's Hebrew Dictionary (1890), entry H7356; TBESH entries H7356A and H7356B; Abbott-Smith, entry σπλάγχνον, as carried in TBESG G4698.

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  • Isaiah 63:15bsb

    Look down from heaven and see, from Your holy and glorious habitation. Where are Your zeal and might? Your yearning and compassion for me are restrained.

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racham: the womb and mercy are the same root · Bubble Bible