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Hebrew and Greek words used in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
Hebrew: nephesh
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Hebrew - nephesh
Strong's - Hebrew 5315 (see Greek 5590)
KJV - appetite, beast, body, breath, creature, desire, ghost, he, heart, life, lust, man, me, mind, mortality, one, own, person, pleasure, self, them/your-selves, soul, they thing, will
NIV - life/lives, soul, (personal pronouns: I, we, you, he, she, they, myself, ourselves, yourself, yourselves, himself, herself, themselves), person/s, people, heart, man, someone, anyone, everyone, creatures, appetite, desire/s, spirit, body, creature, those
BDB (The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, edited by Francis Brown, S.R.Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1996, page 659-661)
The summary of the meanings and usages of nepes (abbreviated n.) in the OT are structured as follows:
1. Concrete meanings: (a) breath, (b) throat/gullet
2. Longing/desire/craving: (a) hunger, (b) vengeance, (c) desire/wish/choice, (d) negative aspects, (e) fixed expressions
3. Soul: (a) desirous, (b) hungry/sated, (c) melancholy/happy, (d) hoping, (e) loving/hating, (f) alive, (g) summary...
(g) If one surveys the categories in which "soul" translates n., one notes, first of all, a peculiar polar character of the usage of n. The soul thirsts/becomes sated; it desires/finds peace; it sorrows/rejoices; it love/hates, etc. In these categories n. exists only in such contrasts. An additional observation is that an intensive orientation toward something dominates this usage. It can have a more passive (thirst, famish, etc.) or more active sense (hate, abhor, etc.). The commonality is the intensity of the experience. Both observatiuons belong together and point to the characteristic element of n. "Soul." They indicate that this cataegory of usage closely resembles that in which n. denotes "desire, longing, yearning" (see 2), but that the Eng. translation "soul" is, in part, only a makeshift. Only in 3c-d do the usage of Eng. "soul" and Hebr. n. coincides to a degree. n. appears once alongside --> basar "body" (Isa 10:18 "he will destroy soul and body") as a merism in the sense of "entirety."
4. Life (a) deliverance/protection/maintenance, (b) threat/detriment, (c) summary...
(c) A review of passages in which n. means "life" (or in which it can be translated with the Eng. word "life") reveals a surprising circumstance: n. does not mean "life" in the general, very broad sense which modern European languages use it (life in terms of divergent forms of the phenomenon; cf. "big-city life," "course of life," etc.). Instead, usage is strictly confined to the limits of life; n. is life in contrast to death. Consequently, occurrences of n. in this meaning divide naturally into two major categories (see 4 a and b); one concerns deliverance or preservation, the other threat or destruction of life.
5. Living being/person (a) in laws, (b) in enumerations, (c) general expressions, (d) pronoun usage
It is oftgen a matter of judgment whether one should translate n. as "my soul" or as the pronoun "I" (e.g., see 3f; in the Psa. esp. semasiological and stylistic factors must be taken into account...
6. Corpse.
Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament, Volume 2 (edited by R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke, Chicago: Moody Press, 1980, page 587-591). This also has an excellent, detailed treatment of the subject.
Online Hebrew dictionary definition - click here
S&H 466:7-31 (Answer to the question: "What are spirits and souls?")
S&H 467:1-468:7 (Answer to the question: "What are the demands of the Science of Soul?")
S&H 477:19-13 (Answer to the question: "What are body and Soul?")
Some other references:
- S&H 39:10-12
- S&H 71:7
- S&H 204:30
- S&H 223:11
- S&H 280:21
- S&H 288:20
- S&H 300:23
- S&H 301:17-1
- S&H 311:7-25
- S&H 335:16
- S&H 359:11
- S&H 381:12
- S&H 396:26-30
- S&H 427:1-7
- S&H 467:17-23
- S&H 481:24-12
S&H 590:1
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Copyright
1996-2002 Robert Nguyen Cramer
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