My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him, Song of Solomon 5:4.
I spent too much time as a vile young man not to notice how awkward Song of Solomon 5:4 can appear in Modern English speech. Nevertheless, is there any mature adult who does not understand the emotional stirrings depicted therein? In one verse the King James Bible has linked the deep rooted physiological changes that take place inside of a woman with her anticipation of the one she loves. "Bowels" in a King James Bible mean more than just the intestines. It includes amongst other things, the reproductive organs.
The ESV waters down Song of Solomon 5:4 by saying:
My beloved put his hand to the latch,
and my heart was thrilled within me.
The ESV appears here as a middle school Valentine Day version. The King James Bible shows us the earnest declaration of the inward changes that passionate love can work in the deep recesses of a woman's desires both physically and emotionally. The ESV gives our woman here a little Justin Bieber tingle. This is teeny bopper love. The ESV appears to be one more tool in the devil's desire to dumb down the English speaking world as well as cheapen the natural urges between a man and a woman that God created.
We see the term "bowels" again when Solomon used his wisdom to determine who was the real mother of the disputed baby. Then spake the woman whose the living child was unto the king, for her bowels yearned upon her son, 1st Kings 3:26. Anyone who has ever seen the miracle from God of a woman with natural affection bonding with her child understands that verse. It goes much deeper than emotion. Her very bowels are affected. Any woman who has ever given birth and then held the fruit of her womb knows that there is something more going on than a little emotion.
The ESV in its drive to dull the natural affections of men and women changes that deep physiological yearning that both medical science and men of old understood. It says:
Then the woman whose son was alive said to the king, because her heart yearned for her son,
We could make a TV show or a movie that could get a heart to yearn for someone. To get the intimate inward parts of someone totally bound up with another human being both physically and emotionally is the work of God through creation. Solomon understood that. I would imagine knowing the highly deceitful nature of the heart that both women's hearts yearned. Only one of them had the yearning so deep in her bowels that she was willing to lose the child.
I highly recommend the book, Hooked: The Brain Science on How Casual Sex Affects Human Development by Joe S. McIlhaney Jr. and Freda McKissic Bush. Both of them are medical doctors who are on the board of the Medical Institute of Sexual Health. Through common sense and good medical research, and without mentioning God one time, they prove what your great grandmother knew by nature and the King James Bible has always said. Courtship, sexual desire and childbirth are intimately tied up together in the inward makeup of the female body. When the King James Bible uses the word "bowels" it is with an insight from God that medical science took centuries to catch up with.
The modern views on sexual relations have not only cheapened human love, they have created a generation of sexual misfits who are addicted to anti-depressants. Ignoring the work of the bowels in human love has wrought a generation of sexually wounded people who grasp at more and more vain relationships that can only wound them more. The ESV is a perfect translation for those who wish to remain in such bondage. Your King James Bible understands and tells us the true nature of human intimacy and love. The word "bowels" is spot on.