Raḥam Kāmar: Stirred in your Bowels
“Joseph hurried out because he was overcome with emotion (raḥam kāmar) for his brother, and he was about to weep. He went into an inner room and wept there.” (Genesis 43:30 - CSB)
There are many ways translators have expanded upon Joseph’s affective experience here:
“he was deeply stirred” (NASB”)
“his compassion grew warm” (ESV)
“deeply moved at the sight” (NIV)
“his heart yearned” (NKJV)
Clearly, something is taking place deep within Joseph - in his heart, his soul, his inmost being - that is moving him towards a kind of cathartic climax that he can no longer repress.
But there are two other translations that might help us take our understanding a step further, which say:
“his bowels did yearn” (KJV)
“his bowels burned” (DBY)
The Hebrew term here, raḥam, can be used both for compassion and mercy, as well as to describe one’s womb or bowels.
In antiquity, your bowels - your stomach, intestines, womb - were thought to be the base of your compassion and love.
So what we read in the Scriptures as the heart - or soul - could be seen as more of a spiritual and psychosomatic connection throughout the body, from the brain, through the nervous system, to the gut.
This makes sense on a neurobiological level, as our vagus nerve - the longest nerve in our autonomic nervous systems - runs from our brain down to our gut, playing a primary role in helping us move from fight-or-flight reactions to a more restful and regulated state.
Additionally, by using the verb kāmar with it - which can mean “to grow scorchingly hot” and also “to become softened” - we see a picture of an inner experience that’s both good and painful, like that of a mother making her final pushes to deliver the new life she has long carried.
This is the truly profound thing about compassion - compati in Latin - which literally means “to suffer with.” It’s an embodied emotion that, while rooted in love, also enters into and experiences pain alongside the hurting.
We see this in the tenderheartedness and earnest regard that Joseph feels towards Benjamin - a brother he had never met.
And this, likewise, is the immense empathy that overflows from Yeshua as we watch him be “moved with compassion (splagchnizomai)” for a crowd “because they were dispirited and distressed, like sheep without a shepherd.” (Matthew 9:36)
We are designed to feel deeply, for our greatest lover and our worst enemy, for the most oppressed and even the worst of oppressors.
Compassion isn’t trauma nor a root to heart disease, but it does go beyond our minds, stirring our cardiovascular systems and gastrointestinal tracts.
Compassion is the emotion where love meets sympathy and sacrifice, where we allow our tummies to toss and our bodies to grow unsettled at the sight - even the thought - of a single person enduring injustice and suffering and cruelty.
And as we allow this compassion to move in our bodies, may we also allow it to move through us, running its course and propelling us to give of ourselves to others.
BONUS:
Fun Fact: Our stomachs are laced with hundreds of millions of neurons - the same amount of neurons as the brain of a cat. Our guts have memory, so the next time you feel something in your gut or have a “gut reaction,” be curious about what it might be communicating to you!
Reminder: Shavuot is just 2 weeks away. Want to learn more or follow a guide to celebrate? Visit here.
