the Third Week of Advent
Click here to join the effort!
Bible Dictionaries
Soul; Self; Life
Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words
or A. Noun.
Nephesh (נֶפֶשׁ, Strong's #5315), “soul; self; life; person; heart.” This is a very common term in both ancient and modern Semitic languages. It occurs over 780 times in the Old Testament and is evenly distributed in all periods of the text with a particularly high frequency in poetic passages.
The basic meaning is apparently related to the rare verbal form, nephesh. The noun refers to the essence of life, the act of breathing, taking breath. However, from that concrete concept, a number of more abstract meanings were developed. In its primary sense the noun appears in its first occurrence in Gen. 1:20: “the moving creature that hath life,” and in its second occurrence in Gen. 2:7: “living soul.”
However, in over 400 later occurrences it is translated “soul.” While this serves to make sense in most passages, it is an unfortunate mistranslation of the term. The real difficulty of the term is seen in the inability of almost all English translations to find a consistent equivalent or even a small group of high-frequency equivalents for the term. The KJV alone uses over 28 different English terms for this one Hebrew word. The problem with the English term “soul” is that no actual equivalent of the term or the idea behind it is represented in the Hebrew language. The Hebrew system of thought does not include the combination or opposition of the terms “body” and “soul,” which are really Greek and Latin in origin. The Hebrew contrasts two other concepts which are not found in the Greek and Latin tradition: “the inner self” and “the outer appearance” or, as viewed in a different context, “what one is to oneself” as opposed to “what one appears to be to one’s observers.” The inner person is nephesh while the outer person, or reputation, is shem, most commonly translated “name.” In narrative or historical passages of the Old Testament, nephesh can be translated as “life” or “self,” as in Lev. 17:11: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for [yourselves].…” Needless to say, the reading “soul” is meaningless in such a text.
But the situation in the numerous parallel poetic passages in which the term appears is much more difficult. The Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate both simply use the Greek and Latin equivalent “soul,” especially in the Psalms. The first occurrence is in Ps. 3:2: “Many are saying of my soul, // There is no deliverance for him in God” (NASB). The next occurrence is in Ps. 6:3: “And my soul is greatly dismayed; // But Thou, O Lord— how long?” (NASB). In both passages the parallel contrast is between nephesh and some aspect of the self, expressed as “him” in Ps. 3:2 and not expressed but understood in Ps. 6:3. There is no distinction as to whether it appears as an “A” or “B” word in the parallelism. However, since Hebrew rejects repeating the same noun in both halves of a poetic line, nephesh is often used as the parallel for the speaker, primary personal subject, and even for God, as in Ps. 11:5: “The Lord trieth the righteous: but the wicked // and him that loveth violence [he himself] hateth.” Such passages are frequent, and a proper understanding of the word enlightens many wellknown passages, such as Ps. 119:109: “My life is continually in my hand, // Yet I do not forget Thy law” (NASB). The versions vary widely in their readings of nephesh, with the more contemporary versions casting widely for meanings.
B. Verb.
Naphash means “to breathe; respire; be refreshed.” This verb, which is apparently related to the noun nephesh, appears 3 times in the Old Testament (Exod. 23:12; 31:17). The other appearance is in 2 Sam. 16:14: “And the king, and all the people that were with him, came weary and refreshed themselves there.”
These files are public domain.
Vines, W. E., M. A. Entry for 'Soul; Self; Life'. Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/vot/s/soul-self-life.html. 1940.
