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Bible Dictionaries
Bosom
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or BOSOM occurs 5 times in Authorized and Revised Versions of the Gospels (Luke 6:38; Luke 16:22-23, John 1:18; John 13:23), representing in each case the Gr. κόλπος, the word which in LXX Septuagint regularly corresponds to חִיק of the Heb. text and ‘bosom’ of the Authorized and Revised Versions. κόλπος is found only once more in NT, viz., in Acts 27:39, where it has the secondary sense of a bay or bight (a bosom-like hollow); cf. English ‘gulf,’ which comes from this root.
In classical Greek, in the LXX Septuagint, and in the NT κόλπος, like Lat. sinus (which Vulgate gives in all the above passages), is used in the two principal senses of (a) the human bosom, the front of the body between the arms; (b) the bosom of the garment, i.e. the hollow formed in front when the upper garment was bound round the waist with the girdle. In Authorized and Revised Versions of the OT ‘bosom’ is to be understood, according to the context, in one or other of these two senses. e.g. in expressions like ‘the wife of thy bosom’ (Deuteronomy 13:6), ‘Naomi took the child and laid it in her bosom’ (Ruth 4:16), the first sense is evidently the proper one. On the other hand, when we read of putting one’s hand into one’s bosom (Exodus 4:6-7), taking fire into the bosom (Proverbs 6:27), receiving a gift in the bosom (Proverbs 21:14), it is the bosom of the garment of which we are to think. See art. Dress.
1. In Luke 6:38, where our Lord says to willing givers, ‘Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over … shall they give into your bosom,’ it is clear that the word has the sense of (b). The overhanging front of the upper garment when confined by the girdle was used as a convenient receptacle, serving the purposes of the modern pocket. An adequate paraphrase would thus be, ‘Your pockets shall be filled to overflowing.’ In the remaining passages two distinct questions emerge. First, the more important one as to the general meaning in each case of the expression ‘in the bosom’ or ‘on the bosom.’ Next, in those cases in which the phrase is taken to refer to the position at table of one guest in relation to another, as to whether the ‘bosom’ is the bosom proper or the bosom of the garment.
2. To begin with the simplest passage, the general meaning of John 13:23, in the light of the table customs of the period, is perfectly plain. In the time of Christ it was customary at a set feast to recline on a divan or couch, with the feet stretched out behind, the left arm supported on a cushion, and the right hand free for eating. Moreover, the usual plan was that the guests reclined not at right angles to the table, but obliquely, this being manifestly much the more convenient way of reaching the viands (cf. Lightfoot, Hor. Heb. et Talm. [Note: Talmud.] , ad loc.). By this arrangement a second guest to the right hand lay with his head towards the bosom of the first, and so on. But what precisely is meant by ‘bosom’ in this connexion? Whether is the word used in the sense of (a) or of (b) as described above? Probably in the latter, the meaning being that the head of the second reached ‘to the sinus of the girdle’ of the first (see Meyer, Com. in loc.). It could not well have reached to the other’s bosom in the strict sense of the word, for this would have interfered with his freedom and comfort in eating and drinking. This view is confirmed by the fact that when the Evangelist describes St. John as leaning back (ἀναπεσών) on Jesus’ breast to ask Him a question, a different word (στῆθος) is employed (John 13:21, cf. John 21:20, and see Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 in both cases). See art. Guest-chamber.
3. The expression ‘Abraham’s bosom’ (Luke 16:22-23) has already been dealt with in its general eschatological signification (see art. Abraham). A question remains, however, as to the precise form of the figure which the words are meant to suggest (note that the plur. in Luke 16:23 has no separate connotation from the sing. in Luke 16:22. Cf. Homer, Il. ix. 570, and see Winer-Moulton, Gram. of NT Gr. 219 f.). Is Abraham to be thought of, fatherlike, as enfolding Lazarus in his arms (cf. ‘Father Abraham,’ Luke 16:24; Luke 16:27; Luke 16:30), or rather as receiving him into the place of the honoured guest, the place nearest to himself at a heavenly banquet? ‘Into Abraham’s bosom’ (εἰς τὸν κόλπον Ἀ., Luke 16:22) might suggest the former, but ‘in his bosom’ (ἐν τοῖς κόλποις αὐτοῦ, Luke 16:23) may very well be used with reference to the idea of a feast, after the analogy of John 13:23 (κόλπος is used in the plural form both of the human bosom and of the folds of the upper garment. See Liddell and Scott and Grimm-Thayer, s.v.). And this seems to be confirmed by that other passage (Matthew 8:11, cf. Luke 13:28-29) in which Jesus says, ‘Many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down ((Revised Version margin) ‘recline,’ Gr. ἀνακλιθήσονται; cf. ἀνεκλίθη in TR [Note: Textus Receptus.] reading of Luke 7:36, which Authorized Version renders ‘sat down to meat’) with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.’ Alike for the social outcast (Lazarus) and for the religious outcasts (the Gentiles), Jesus holds out as a joyful prospect the thought of sitting down with Abraham at a heavenly banqueting-table. The conception of Paradise, moreover, under the figure of a feast, is specially appropriate, because of the contrast it presents to the earthly condition of Lazarus as a starving beggar (Luke 7:21), just as it is in keeping with the great reversal in the positions of the two men that Dives, who on earth had ‘fared sumptuously every day’ (Luke 7:19), should now lack even a drop of water to cool his burning tongue (Luke 7:24).
4. The only passage that remains is John 1:18, where Jesus Christ is described as ‘the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father.’ In this case the image of neighbours at a feast seems quite inappropriate, though some have suggested it; and it is in every way more suitable, in view of the whole purpose of the Prologue no less than the language of the immediate context, to take ‘in the bosom of the Father’ in that closer and more tender meaning in which in the OT the expression is used to describe, whether literally or figuratively, the relation of a wife to her husband (Deuteronomy 13:6), or of a child to his father (Numbers 11:12) or mother (1 Kings 17:19). This beautiful term of human affection is employed here to denote the intimate fellowship of perfect love which exists between God and His Son. Some difficulty is occasioned by the fact that the phrase in the original is εἰς τὸν κόλπον, literally, ‘into the bosom.’ Meyer insists on giving to εἰς its ordinary meaning of ‘direction towards,’ and so recognizes as the prominent element in the expression the idea of having arrived at. He admits that ‘so far as the thing itself is concerned,’ the εἰς τὸν κόλπον of John 1:18 does not differ from the πρὸς τὸν θεόν of John 1:1, but maintains that in John 1:18, at all events, the Evangelist desires to express the fullest fellowship with God, not before the Incarnation, but after the Ascension into glory. In this case, however, the description of Jesus Christ as εἰς τὸν κόλπον of the Father would be inappropriate, for the Evangelist is in the act of explaining how it is that the Only-Begotten Son was made to ‘declare’ the Father while on earth (note the aorist ἐξηγήσατο). It seems proper, therefore, to take ὥν as a timeless present, and to understand the author to mean that Jesus had declared God on earth because His inherent relation to the Father, before the Incarnation as after the Exaltation, was one of being ‘in his bosom’ (cf. John 16:28 ‘I came out from the Father, and am come into the world’; John 17:5-6 ‘the glory which I had with thee before the world was … I manifested [ἐφανέρωσα, aor.] thy name’). The εἰς in this case may either simply be used for ἐν, after the fashion of the constructio praegnans (cf. Mark 13:9; Mark 13:16, Acts 7:4; Acts 8:40), or, as Godet and Westcott think (Comm. in loc.), may point to a relationship not of simple contiguity merely, but of perfect communion realized through active intercourse. The Father’s bosom is not a place but a life. ‘The Son is there, only because He plunges into it by His unceasing action; it is so with every state which consists in a moral relation’ (Godet, ib.).
Literature.—Grimm-Thayer, Lex., s.v. κόλτος; the Comm. on the various passages; Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible, artt. ‘Dress,’ ‘Abraham’s Bosom.’
J. C. Lambert.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Bosom'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/b/bosom.html. 1906-1918.
