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LIVER
Large abdominal organ that performs many functions necessary for life. The writer of Proverbs understood the critical nature of the liver when he noted that an arrow injury to the liver (NLT “heart”) was fatal (Prv 7:23). In most instances, in Scripture the liver is mentioned in connection with the description of animal sacrifices (Ex 29:13, 22; Lv 3:4, 10, 15).
In ancient Babylon, sheep liver was occasionally used in fortune-telling; the shape of each small detail of the liver was carefully examined for possible omens. Bronze and baked-clay anatomical models of sheep livers have been recovered from archaeology sites dating to the 16th century BC. Evidently this is the use of the liver made by the king of Babylon in Ezekiel 21:21. This use of the sheep liver was popular until the time of the Greeks and rivaled astrology for many centuries.