LIVER (tiv'er), (Heb. kaw-bade', meaning to be heavy), occurs in Exod. 22; LeV, i11:4, 10, 15; 1V:9; V11:4 ; V111:16, 25 ; ix:io, 19; Prov. vii:23; Lam. ii:i t; Ezek. xxi:2r; it is ap plied to the liver, the heaviest of the viscera, as we in English use the word "lights" for lungs, the lightest.
(1) In all the instances where the word occurs in the Pentateuch, it forms part of the phrase translated in the A. V. '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 to be meant. It appears from the same passages that it was burnt npon the altar, and not eaten as sacrificial food (Jahn, Biblisches Archool. sec. 378, n. 7). Thc liver was supposed by the ancient Jews, Greeks, and Romans to be the seat of the passions, pride, love, etc. Thus Gen. xlix :6, 'with their assembly let not' (literally, my liver) 'be united.' (Sec Heb. of Ps. xvi:o; lvii:9; cviii:2; and Anacreon, Ode iii at end; Theocritus, idyll xi:16; Horace, Cann. i. 13, 4, 25, 15; iV. I, 12; and the Notes of the Del phin edition ; comp. also Persius, Sat. v. 129 ; Ju venal, Sat. v, 647). (2) Wounds in the liver were supposed to be mortal ; thus the expressions in Prov. vii :23, 'a dart through his liver,' and Lam. ii :it, `my liver is poured out upon the earth.' are each of them a periphrasis for death itself. (3) The passage in Ezekiel contains an interesting reference to the most ancient of all modes of div ination, by the inspection of the viscera of ani mals and even of mankind sacrificially slaugh tered for the purpose. It is there said that the king of Babylon, among other modes of divina tion referrcd to in the same verse, 'looked upon the liver.' Thc liver was always considered the most important organ in the ancient art of ExtisPicium, or divination by the entra ils. Phi los
tratus felicitously describes it as 'the prophesy ing tripod of all divination' (Life of A pollonius, viii, 7, 5). The rules by which thc Greeks and Ro mans judged of it are amply detailed in Adam's Roman Antiquities, p. 261, etc., London, 1834. But divination is coeval and coextensive with a belief in the divinity. We accept the argu ment of the Stoics, 'sunt Di ergo est Divinatio.' 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 trans gressions, their descendants endeavored to obtain counsel and information by the same external ob servances. We believe that thus only will the minute resemblances be accounted for which we discover between the different methods of divina tion, 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 divina tion is that of the teraphim of Laban, a native of Padan-aram (Gen. xxxi:19, 3o), but by which tera phim both the Septuagint and Josephus understood irap alyay, 'the liver of goats' (A ntiq. vi:t 4).
J. F. D. LIVING CREATURES (Itv'mg kre'tfirs), (Ezek. cc. i, x; Rev. iv:6-9, A. V. "beasts," but should always be translated as in R. V. "living crea tures"). They are identical with CHERUB] M (see CHERUB, CHERUB' ).