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- ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance.
Psalm 42:5.
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Here is another usage of nephesh to mean – me, myself.
It is a strong way of talking about yourself. This is David talking to himself about himself. He chose to use the word nephesh for his soul, that is, ‘himself’. |
These are three conclusions that can be drawn from the use of the word nephesh which is translated soul.
It is never used for a separate entity, but always for the whole person. By the use of this word, a human being is viewed as |
- a unit,
- a single personality
- an integer (not something made up of different elements or fractions).
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We say similar things today without realising it. We see a smiling baby in a buggy and comment – ‘What a happy little soul!’ Or when we visit someone who is ill, we say, ‘Oh poor soul, what a shame!’ We are clearly talking about the whole person. We are not thinking of the body as having something living a parallel life inside it. The Bible does not show us to have two personalities. Nephesh is a complete whole. In everyday language, we understand these ideas well and know exactly what they mean, as with the baby. Why should it be any different when we read the same concept in the Bible? Interestingly the idea of a soul, ’nephesh’, does not relate only to human kind but also to animals – and animals that can be dead - or alive.
We have to conclude that in the Bible there is never any idea in the word nephesh, translated ‘soul’, to imply that there is anything both immortal and indestructible living within us. This originated from Greek philosophy, not God. |
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What about the word ‘spirit’? How is this used in the Old Testament?
The word ‘spirit’ occurs 234 times in the Old Testament of the Authorised Version of the Bible, and is translated principally from the word Hebrew word ruach.
Ruach gives us 232 of the 234 Old Testament verses speaking of ‘spirit’, but it is also translated as wind (97), breath (28), mind (8), blast (4) and in other verses as ‘anger’, ‘air’, ‘tempest’, ‘vain’. Many of the 232 verses speaking about ‘spirit’ do not relate to this subject, but refer either to the Spirit of God, or to a spirit that is refreshed or vexed. |
| Here is a selection of verses which are translations of ‘ruach’: |
- And Pharaoh said unto his servants, Can we find such a one as this is, a man in whom the Spirit of God is? Genesis 41:8.
- And they told him all the words of Joseph, which he had said unto them: and when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived: Genesis 5:27.
- And it came to pass, when all the kings of the Amorites, which were on the side of Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, which were by the sea, heard that the LORD had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel, until we were passed over, that their heart melted, neither was there spirit in them any more, because of the children of Israel. Joshua 5:1.
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But Jezebel his wife came to him, and said unto him, Why is thy spirit so sad, that thou eatest no bread? 1 Kings 21:5. |
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