The Three-Hundred-Sixteenth (Organs)
Sometimes when you read through scripture you come to things that make you pause for a moment and go, “huh.” Not really a question about what you read, but more of an expression of, “I wonder what that could mean.” This week we’re going to pause and go “huh” on some of the things scripture says about our anatomy.
I have a personal view on what all this means when you put it together, but I encourage you to come up with your own view. Read through this and then do your own study to come to your own conclusion. This topic has a thin thread to last week’s topic in that we all must come to decide for ourselves what is real, what we believe, and what should be used as a foundation to answer those questions.
I listen to a podcast where they talk about various topics and, mostly, how to look at them from a Christian viewpoint. There’s a lot of other riff raff in there, but generally, that’s the basis for their podcast. This week, they covered the idea of simulation theory, which has been around in various forms for quite some time.
These days, simulation theory comes in the form of considering the possibility that the universe is just a simulation, nothing is real and everything is just ones and zeroes in some higher level being’s equivalent to a supercomputer. Historically, it’s come in the form of philosophers considering the meaning of existence and whether or not man actually exists at all. If you’ve heard about Rene Descartes’, “I think therefore I am,” then you’re at least somewhat familiar with this philosophical subject.
At the extreme opposite of the spectrum, you have those that consider everything in the universe as being made up of nothing but physical “stuff.” They believe that no matter how deep you go, with whatever super-microscope you can invent, you’ll keep finding some types of particles that ultimately make up everything we can see, hear, feel, taste, etc. Their view is that if you can get down to the most basic building block and be able to characterize it, you’ll be able to explain how everything works and interacts with each other.
The more studies I do the more I confirm a pattern that exists no matter where I look. The pattern is that the truth lies somewhere within a mix of the edges that make up the widely held views/beliefs among mankind. In this case, if one edge is that nothing is real and we’re all in a simulation and the other edge is that everything is real and physical and everything can be explained by understanding the physical, then the truth would be that there is some physical and some non-physical aspects that make up our existence and the universe, in general.
The question then, when it comes down to it, is where is the line drawn? To put it a little too simplistically, are we 50/50 physical/non-physical? Is it 80/20? Is it 20/80? Is it 90/10 or 10/90?
I don’t believe it’s possible to know where the line is unless we receive a direct revelation from YHWH that tells us. I believe there is not enough information available to us in order to come to the correct conclusion. That’s not to say we don’t have enough information to draw some conclusions, though.
For example, if we take scripture as truth, which I do and I hope you do as well, we can easily come to the conclusion that there is some non-physical aspect to the universe. We read that YHWH is Spirit (John 4:24) and know very clearly that this does not fall under the category of physical. In other words, at least some portion of what makes up the universe includes some non-physical category that the scripture calls, “spirit.”
We also know that there is some portion of man that is made up of this non-physical aspect of spirit. In Hebrew, it’s called ruach (Strong’s 7307) and one of the first verses we see this word being associated with man is when Pharaoh was troubled in his ruach about his dream (Genesis 41:8). In the context of a person, this Hebrew word can mean spirit or breath, but it’s obvious that in this context Pharaoh couldn’t be “troubled in his breath,” so the verse is talking about his spirit.
We’re already getting into some confusing stuff though, aren’t we? This word is used earlier in scripture to talk about how Isaac and Rebekah felt about Esau’s wives (Genesis 26:35). The phrase in Hebrew means “bitterness of spirit.”
Now we’re starting to associate what we would call feelings to this non-physical aspect of man. Some translations use the word “grief” for this phrase. The good ole’ KJV uses the phrase “grief of mind,” which means its even translating ruach to “mind!”
Today, man generally considers his mind the same thing as his brain. So, are we to conclude that the non-physical aspect of us that is our spirit is contained in the physical aspect of us that is our brain? Perhaps, but what if I told you that the NKJV, which also translated ruach to mind in that verse, translated a different Hebrew word to mind elsewhere?
In a semi-common verse of Psalm 26, the translation reads “…Try my mind and my heart” (Psalm 26:2). Here, the Hebrew word is kilyah (Strong’s H3629), and it means kidneys! Is both our brain and our kidneys parts of our mind? Subsequently, are they both parts of our spirit, or at least are they the parts of our body that our spirit interacts with in some way?
Interestingly, the kidneys were also a key component when conducting the sacrificial process (Exodus 29:13, 22, Leviticus 3:4, 10, etc.). As far as organs go, the kidneys and the liver were typically what was presented as a food offering to YHWH, along with the intestinal fat of the sacrificial animal. Do you remember what else was a key component of the sacrificial process?
That’s right, blood is what was used as the atonement for sins (Leviticus 17:11). In fact, scripture states in that verse that the life of the flesh is in the blood. The Hebrew word for life there being nephesh (Strong’s H5315). Some translations use the word “soul” for that Hebrew word, but what exactly does that mean?
This is another abstract idea that we’re now adding to what makes up a being, and yes, there’s a reason I didn’t specify mankind there. That Hebrew word is first used during the account of creation and there it is associated with animals of the sea (Genesis 1:20). Literally translated, it says, “…Let swarm the waters with a swarm of living souls…”
Just reading that verse and a few others in that chapter (Genesis 1:21-30), what you come to find out is that nephesh is connected to all animals. In other words, it seems according to scripture that all living creatures have a soul. Either that, or nephesh doesn’t actually mean the same thing as whatever we consider a soul is.
At any rate, the nephesh and the blood are connected over and over again in scripture. Just by that alone we have to question whether or not there’s something more to blood than just its physical constituents of red blood cells, platelets, white blood cells, and plasma. What of us are we giving away when we donate blood? What are we accepting from others when we receive blood via a transfusion?
Why did YHWH repeatedly command against eating meat with the blood still in it? Scholars like to attribute this to the fact that there were (and in fact, are still today) pagan rituals of drinking blood and YHWH wanted His people to be set apart from the pagans. The only problem is that this doesn’t quite line up with scripture in that it’s ignoring (or at least minimizing) this connection between blood and nephesh. Additionally, it’s all based on the assumption that at least some of YHWH’s commandments were given solely based on what pagans were doing.
To put it a different way, this view by the scholars leans towards making blood purely a physical thing rather than having some non-physical component to it. The other reason this view doesn’t sit right with me is because this commandment was given all the way back when YHWH first allowed man to start eating meat (Genesis 9:3-4). He told Noah, right after the flood, that everything that has “life” in it is food, when previously, the only thing that was commanded by YHWH as food (for any living creature!) were plants (Genesis 1:29-30). At that point in time, it was only Noah and his family, so there were no pagans to base this commandment off of.
So far, we’ve seen that blood, kidneys, and liver have something non-physical associated with them according to scripture, but we also have scriptural context to our intestines/abdomen/stomach, for which the Hebrew word is meeh (Strong’s H4578). In fact, there is a psalm of David where he states that YHWH’s Law is within his bowels (Psalm 40:8). However, most translations use the word “heart” here!
That brings us to the organ most written about in scripture: the heart (leb, Strong’s H3820). The Hebrew word for heart is used nearly twice as many times as the word for blood, and there’s a lot of non-physical things that it does. It has intent and works associated with that intent (Genesis 6:5). It most certainly has something spiritual associated with it because YHWH has one (Genesis 6:6)! It can speak (Genesis 17:17).
The heart also has emotions (Exodus 4:14). It can be wise or foolish (Exodus 28:3). It has desires, or a will (Numbers 24:13).
I think you get the picture. If you ask most people in the world about what the heart does, they’ll talk about how it moves blood throughout our body. Have you ever looked into that process though?
The numbers thrown around today regarding the transit of blood through our body are quite astonishing. Apparently, a single red blood cell takes about 60 seconds to make a full loop around our body, from the heart and then back to it traveling through capillaries and all. What about the flow rate for blood through the heart?
Well, cardiac output is about 5.25 liters per minute. Converting that to gallons per minute, you get about 1.4. This flow rate is through the aorta, the largest blood vessel in our body, which is a little over 3/4 of an inch in diameter.
If you take what medicine calls a normal blood pressure of 120/80 and find the mean arterial pressure (the average force driving blood into vessels that serve the tissues), you’ll come to the value of about 93 mmHg. Converting that pressure to psi would give you about 1.8 psi as the average force that the heart apparently uses to move our blood cells through our body. For context, the water pressure in your home is an average of 40-70 psi and at a bathroom faucet you get a 1-1.5 gallon per minute flow rate with approximately the same pipe diameter as the aorta.
Those are some pretty interesting numbers, aren’t they? We can say that the way YHWH designed our physical bodies is amazing, and that is a true statement, but I hope what you can see by going through that exercise is that there’s something more going on there than how we’re told our bodies operate physically. There has to be. And, by the way, personally I don’t find it coincidental that the organs involved in moving and cleaning the blood are the same ones not only scripturally connected to thoughts, intent, and emotions but also used in the sacrificial process that used blood for atonement, life for life.
As stated in the beginning, this needs to be something you study in scripture for yourself so you can come to your own beliefs. However, don’t stop there. You need to take the next step and figure out what those beliefs mean in terms of how you live your life and the decisions you make regarding your body!
We hope you have a great week! Shabbat shalom and YHWH bless you!
-Rob and Sara Gene
The Gospel
We are born sinful as a result of Adam and Eve's sin (Genesis 2:17, 3:6, 1 John 1:8)
The consequence of sin, which is unavoidable through our own works, is death (Romans 6:23)
Yeshua, the Son of YHWH, lived sinless and was put to death (Hebrews 4:15)
His death, therefore, cleanses us of sin that would have required our death
He rose on the third day (1 Corinthians 15:4)
Because of His resurrection, we are confident in our future resurrection and eternal life
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