Word studies · Hebrew · Strong's H3820
לֵב · lêb · appears 595 times in the Old Testament
In one line: Your inner center — thinking, willing, feeling.
Guard your heart with all diligence, for from it flow springs of life.
Proverbs 4:23
Leb is the heart — the hidden center where a person thinks, chooses and feels, the seat of the real self.
In the Old Testament the heart thinks, plans, remembers and decides as much as it feels: people say things “in their heart,” God searches it, and wisdom is asked for as “an understanding heart.” It stands for the whole inner life, hidden from others and open to God.
Leb (with its longer form lebab) names the bodily organ and, by extension, the inner person. Hebrew has no separate vocabulary for mind and will, so this one word carries what English splits across head, heart and conscience.
Our culture opposes the head to the heart — reason to feeling — and reads biblical “heart” as emotion. That misreads verses like “the fool says in his heart, there is no God,” which is a conclusion, not a mood.
Leb (H3820) appears 523 times in the Hebrew Bible, and Hebrew uses the same word for the middle of the sea and the midst of a fire — the heart of anything is its center.
Because the heart is the center, God's covenant demand and covenant promise both aim there: love Him “with all your heart,” and the new covenant is written on the heart rather than on stone. It is also why God's assessment differs from ours — “man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart.”
Guard what you let form your inner center, since Proverbs says everything you do flows from it. Audit one input this week — what you read, watch or scroll — and ask what it is shaping.
the heart; also used (figuratively) very widely for the feelings, the will and even the intellect; likewise for the centre of anything
Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was altogether evil all the time.
Genesis 6:5Then the anger of the LORD burned against Moses, and He said, “Is not Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he can speak well, and he is now on his way to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart.
Exodus 4:14Then Moses said, “This is how you will know that the LORD has sent me to do all these things, for it was not my own doing:
Numbers 16:28Among those nations you will find no repose, not even a resting place for the sole of your foot. There the LORD will give you a trembling heart, failing eyes, and a despairing soul.
Deuteronomy 28:65For it was of the LORD to harden their hearts to engage Israel in battle, so that they would be set apart for destruction and would receive no mercy, being annihilated as the LORD had commanded Moses.
Joshua 11:20My heart is with the princes of Israel, with the volunteers among the people. Bless the LORD!
Judges 5:9Press and hold heart in any chapter and this study opens on the verse you are reading, with the lexicons, every occurrence and the commentaries beside it. The Bible is free to read.
Scripture quoted from the Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Strong's definitions are public domain. Counts come from The Pillar's own tagged text.