Bowels are often put by the Hebrew writers for the internal parts generally, the inner man, and so also for heart, as we use that term. Hence the bowels are made the seat of tenderness, mercy, and compassion; and thus the Scriptural expressions of the bowels being moved, bowels of mercy, straitened in the bowels, etc. By a similar association of ideas, the bowels are also sometimes made the seat of wisdom and understanding (Job 38:36; Psalms 51:10; Isaiah 16:11).