In Henry V, Shakespeare has the Duke of Exeter say:

Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,

In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove,

That if requiring fail, he will compel;

And bids you, in the bowels of the Lord,

Deliver up the crown; and to take mercy

On the poor souls for whom this hungry war

Opens his vasty jaws...

So it seems to have been a fairly common idiom in 17th C English.