Bosom

"bosom; lap; base." Cognates of this word appear in Akkadian, late Aramaic, and Arabic. The word appears 38 times throughout biblical literature.

The word represents the "outer front of one's body" where beloved ones, infants, and animals are pressed closely: "Have I conceived all this people have I begotten them, that thou shouldest say unto me, Carry them in thy bosom, as a nursing father beareth the sucking child …" (Num 11:12). In its first biblical appearance, hêq is used of a man's "bosom": "And Sarai said unto Abram, My wrong be upon thee: I have given my maid into thy bosom; and when she saw that she had conceived, I was despised in her eyes …" (Gen 16:5). The "husband of one's bosom" is a husband who is "held close to one's heart" or "cherished" (Deut 28:56). This figurative inward sense appears again in Psa 35:13: " … My prayer returned into mine own bosom" (cf. Job 19:27). in 1Ki 22:35, the word means the "inside" or "heart" of a war chariot.

Hêq represents a fold of one's garment above the belt where things are hidden: "And the Lord said furthermore unto him [Moses], Put now thine hand into thy bosom" (Exod 4:6). Various translations may render this word as "lap": "The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord" (Prov 16:33). Yet "bosom" may be used, even where "lap" is clearly intended: "But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up: and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom …" (2Sam 12:3).

Finally, hêq means the "base of the altar," as described in Ezek 43:13 (cf. Ezek 43:17).

signifies (a) "the front of the body between the arms;" hence, to recline in the "bosom" was said of one who so reclined at table that his head covered, as it were, the "bosom" of the one next to him, Joh 13:23. Hence, figuratively, it is used of a place of blessedness with another, as with Abraham in paradise, Luk 1:16-23 (plural in Luk 16:23), from the custom of reclining at table in the "bosom," a place of honor; of the Lord's eternal and essential relation with the Father, in all its blessedness and affection as intimated in the phrase, "The Only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father" (Joh 1:18); (b) "of the bosom of a garment, the hollow formed by the upper forepart of a loose garment, bound by a girdle and used for carrying or keeping things;" thus figuratively of repaying one liberally, Luk 6:38; cp. Isa 65:6, Jer 39:18; (c) "of an inlet of the sea," because of its shape, like a bosom, Act 27:39. See BAY, CREEK.