The heart is, in our language, the seat of love. It is not so in the Old Testament. Affection is generally allocated to another part of the frame; but here the heart stands for the organ of care, of thought, of interest. For, according to the Old Testament view of the relation between man's body and man's soul, the very seat and center of the individual life is in the heart. I suppose that was because it was known that, somehow or other, the blood came thence. Be that as it may, the thought is clear throughout all the Old Testament that the heart is the man, and the man is the heart. And so, if Jesus bears our names upon His heart, that does not express merely representation nor merely intercession, but it expresses also personal regard, individualizing knowledge. For Aaron wore not one great jewel with Israel' written on it, but twelve little ones, with Dan,' Benjamin,' and Ephraim,' and all the rest of them, each on his own gem.
So we can say, Such a High Priest became us, who could have compassion upon the ignorant, and upon them that are out of the way'; and we can fall back on that old-fashioned but inexhaustible source of consolation and strength: In all their affliction He was afflicted'; and though the noise of the tempests which toss us can scarcely be supposed to penetrate into the veiled place where He dwells on high, yet we may be sure--and take all the peace and consolation and encouragement out of it that it is meant to give us--that we have not a High Priest that cannot be touched with a feeling of our infirmities,' but that Himself, having known miseries is able to succor them that are tempted.' Our names are on Christ's heart.
