NAVEL (שֹׁר, H9219, navel, umbilical cord), used only twice in the OT (RSV). In Ezekiel 16:4 the emergence of Jerusalem into civic life is likened to the birth of a female foundling left to die in the open, had it not been rescued. It had not received the usual care given to a new-born child, including the tying of the umbilical cord. Without this precaution arterial blood would flow from the infant’s arteries and escape from the raw surface of the afterbirth until the child would be drained of blood.

For literary or linguistic reasons navel in KJV (Judg 9:37; Prov 3:8 and Job 40:16) is tr. “center,” “flesh,” and “loins” respectively in the RSV.