Bible Lexicons

Girdlestone's Synonyms of the Old TestamentGirdlestone's OT Synonyms

Soul

When the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says that the word of God pierces 'to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit' (Hebrews 4:12), and when St. Paul prays that the 'spirit, soul, and body' of his converts may be preserved blameless (1 Thessalonians 5:23), a psychological division of the immaterial part of human nature is drawn which is exactly similar to what we find running through the whole O.T. The Bible proceeds up on the supposition that there are two spheres of existence, which may be called mind and matter; it tells us that the key to the mystery of the universe is to be found, not in the material substance of which it is composed, nor in the agencies or influences which cause the phenomena of nature to follow one another in regular sequence, but to a Mastermind, who plans all things by his wisdom, and sustains them by his power. The Scriptures bring the immaterial world very close to every one of us; and whilst we are all only too conscious of our relation to things fleeting and physical, the Sacred Record reminds us on every page that we are the offspring of the absolute and unchanging Source of all existence. A man is sometimes tempted to say, 'I will believe only what I see;' but the first puff of wind or the first shock of electricity tells him that he must enlarge his creed. If he still stops short by asserting his faith only in the forces which affect matter, he will find himself confronted by the fact that the matter which composes the human frame becomes by that very circumstance subject to forces and influences to which all other matter is a stranger. He finds a world with in as well as a world without, and he is compelled to acknowledge that his physical frame is the tenement of a super-physical being which he calls self, and which is on the one h and a recipient of knowledge and feeling obtained through the instrumentality of the body, and on the other h and an agent originating or generating a force which tells up on the outer world.

It is in respect to this inner life and its workings that man is the child of God. his structure is of soil, earth-born, allied with all physical existence, and subjected to the laws of light, heat, electricity, gravitation, and such like, as muc has if it were so many atoms of vegetable or mineral matter. But the immaterial existence which permeates that structure, investing it with consciousness, flooding it with sensibilities, illuminating it with understanding, enabling it to plan, to forecast, to will, to rule, to make laws, to sympathise, to love - This ego, this pulse of existence, this nucleus of feeling and thought and action, is a denizen of an immaterial sphere of being, though ordained by God its Father to live and grow and be developed with in the tabernacle of flesh.

The Hebrew equivalent for the word 'soul' in almost every passage in the O.T. is Nephesh (נפשׁ ), which answers to ψυχή in the Greek. The cognate verb Naphash, to refresh, is found in Exodus 23:12; Exodus 31:17, and 2 Samuel 16:14 : [ in Assyrian, napistu, which means 'life,' is connected with napdsu, to 'expand,' and hence to 'breathe' (Sayce).] The word Nephesh has various shades of meaning and of rendering, which must be gathered as far as possible under one or two heads. The soul is, properly speaking, the animating principle of the body, and is the common property of man and beast. Thus, in Leviticus 24:18, we read, 'He that killeth a beast shall make it good; beast for beast;' this is literally, 'He that smiteth the soul of a beast shall recompense it; soul for soul.' It is also used with respect to the lower animals in Genesis 1:21; Genesis 1:24; Genesis 2:19; Leviticus 11:46, al., in which passages it has been rendered creature.

In some passages nephesh has been rendered 'anyone;' the word is thus used in an indefinite sense, the soul representing the person, as when we speak of a city containing so many thous and 'souls.' Thus, we read in Leviticus 2:1, 'When any (lit. 'a soul') will offer a meat offering;' Leviticus 24:17, 'He that killeth any man,' lit. 'that smiteth any soul of man' - the soul representing the life; Numbers 19:11, 'He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days,' lit. 'he that toucheth the dead (part) of any soul of a man shall be unclean seven days;' also verse 13, 31:19, and Numbers 35:11; Numbers 35:15; Numbers 35:30 in these passages a dead body is regarded as that which ought properly to be animated by the soul, but owing to the law whereby man has to return to the dust, the spectacle is seen of a soulless body, which is to be regarded as ceremonially unclean. Compare Leviticus 21:11; Numbers 5:2; Numbers 6:6; Numbers 6:11; Numbers 9:6-7; Numbers 9:10.

In Psalms 17:9, 'deadly enemies' are literally 'enemies of my soul or life.' in Job 11:20, 'the giving up of the ghost' is 'the puffing forth of the soul.' So also in Jeremiah 15:9, the literal rendering is 'she hath puffed forth the soul.'

The soul is thus the source of animation to the body; in other words, it is the life, whether of man or beast. Accordingly, Nephesh is rendered 'life' in Genesis 19:17; Genesis 19:19, where we read of Lot's life being saved; Genesis 32:30, 'I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved;' Genesis 44:30, 'H is life is bound up in the lad's life;' Exodus 21:23, 'Thou shalt give life for life;' verse 30, 'He shall give for the ransom of his life whatsoever is laid up on him.'

In Deuteronomy 24:7, we read, 'If a man be found stealing any (lit. 'a soul') of his brethren,' &c.; so in Ezekiel 27:13, 'They traded the persons (lit. 'the souls') of men.' by the use of the word Nepheshhere the wickedness of treating men as goods and chattels to be bought and sold is practically reprobated. this doubtless is the crime referred to in Revelation 18:13. Perhaps the word 'person' in the sense in which we speak of an offence against a man's person, or of a personal injury, is the best rendering in such passages. It is adopted in Genesis 14:21; Leviticus 27:2 (where both men and beasts are referred to); Numbers 5:6; Numbers 19:18, and Ezekiel 16:5. A similar rendering is self, which is found in Leviticus 11:43, 1 Kings 19:4, and Isaiah 5:14.

In some passages the word soul is added to give emphasis, as in Genesis 27:31, &c., 'that thy soul may bless me.' Compare Matthew 26:38.

In Hebrew, as in most other languages, the shedding of a man's blood was a phrase used to represent the taking of his life, for 'the blood is the life.' in this oft-repeated phrase (e.g. Leviticus 17:11; Leviticus 17:14) we see that the blood is (i.e. represents) 'the soul;' and if the one flows out from the body, the other passes away too in Proverbs 28:17, we read literally, 'The man that doeth violence to the blood of a soul shall flee into the pit;' so in Ezekiel 33:6, 'If the sword come and take away a soul (A. V. 'person') from among them . his blood will I require at the watchman's hands;' Jonah 1:14, 'Let us not perish for this man's life, and lay not up on us innocent blood.'

This mystical identification of the blood and the life is of great interest as bearing up on the atoning work of Christ. We are told that He poured out his soul unto death, and that He shed his blood for the remission of sins. Evidently the shedding of the blood was the outward and visible sign of the severance of the soul from the body in death; and this severance is regarded as a voluntary sacrifice offered by the Divine Son, in accordance with his Father's will, as the means of putting away sin.

But the Nephesh or soul is something more than the bare animating principle of the body; at least, if it is regarded in this light, a large view must be taken of that mysterious organisation which we call the body, and it must include the bodily appetites and desires. The word is rendered 'appetite' in Proverbs 23:2, and Ecclesiastes 6:7. Compare the words of Israel, 'our soul loatheth this light food' (Numbers 21:5). Other passages in which a similar idea is presented are Ecclesiastes 6:9, al. (desire); Isaiah 56:11 (greedy); Exodus 15:9, al. (lust); Psalms 105:22, al. (pleasure); Deuteronomy 21:14, al. (will).

Nephesh is also rendered mind and heart in several places where these words are used in the sense of desire and inclination, e.g. Genesis 23:8; 2 Kings 9:15.

Thus the soul, according to the O.T., is the personal centre of desire, inclination, and appetite, and its normal condition is to be operating in or through means of a physical organisation, whether human or otherwise. Hence, when we read that man or Adam became a living soul (Genesis 2:7), we are to understand that the structure which had been moulded from the dust became the habitation and, to a certain extent, the servant of an ego or conscious centre of desire or appetite. When the soul departs (Genesis 35:18), the body becomes untenanted, and the ego which has grown with the growth of the body is dislodged from its habitation. It may, however, return again to its old home through the operation of God, as was the case with the widow's child (1 Kings 17:21; compare Psalms 16:10).

The fact that the desires to which the soul gives birth are often counter to the will of God fixes sin up on the soul; accordingly, we read, 'the soul that sinneth it shall die' (Ezekiel 18:4). Hence the need of atonement for the soul (Leviticus 17:11), and of its conversion or restoration to a life of conformity with God's law (Psalms 19:7; Psalms 34:22).

In the N.T. ψυχή often signifies life, as in Matthew 2:20, 'Those who seek the life of the young child;' Matthew 6:25, 'Be not solicitous. for your life' (or animal existence) in Matthew 10:28, a distinction is drawn between the destruction of the body, which man can effect, and the perdition or ru in of the soul as well as the body in Gehenna, which only God can bring about. Sometimes there seems to be a play up on the word, as when the Saviour says 'he that loseth his life or soul (in the ordinary sense of the word) shall find it' (in a new and higher sense), Matthew 10:30; Matthew 16:25. When describing his mission, our Lord plainly said that He came to give his soul or life a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28) in Acts 2:27, St. Peter quotes the Psalm (16:10), 'Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades.' this passage certainly might be taken to signify, 'thou wilt not leave my dead body in the grave;' but it is far more in accordance with the usage of the two important words soul and Hades to understand that the animating principle, the ego, of our Saviour was not to remain in the nether world.