Nephesh

For other uses, see Nefesh (disambiguation).

Nephesh (נֶפֶש) is a Biblical Hebrew word which occurs in the Hebrew Bible. The word refers to the tangible aspects of life, and human beings and higher animals are both described as having a nephesh. The Hebrew term נפש is literally "living being", although it is commonly rendered as soul in English translations. A different view is that nephesh relates to being without the idea of life and that rather than having a nephesh a creation of God is a nephesh. In Genesis 2:7 the text is that Adam was not given a nephesh but "became a living nephesh." Nephesh then is better translated as person or being, seeing that Numbers 6:6 speaks of a dead body which in Hebrew is a nephesh mooth, a dead nephesh.

Biblical use

The word nephesh occurs 754 times in the Hebrew Old Testament. The first four times nephesh is used in the Bible, it is used exclusively to describe animals: Gen 1:20 (sea life), Gen 1:21 (sea life), Gen 1:24 (land creatures), Gen 1:30 (birds and land creatures). At Gen 2:7 nephesh is used as description of man.

Job 12:7-10 offers a distinct similarity between רוח (ruah) and נפׁש (nephesh): “In His hand is the life (nephesh) of every living thing and the spirit (ruah) of every human being.” Although this passage could indicate that only humans have a spirit, while animals are only imbued with life, Levison asserts that this passage actually implies that every living creature, including animals, is endowed with the spirit (ruah) of God.

The Hebrew term, nephesh chayyah is often translated "living soul". Chayyah alone is often translated living thing or animal. The Hebrew word tsiyyi is translated wild animal.

The Greek the word ψυχή (psyche) is the closest equivalent to the Hebrew nephesh.

Number of times Nephesh and Psūchê are translated into certain English words.
Translated as	Nephesh		Psūchê
	NIV	KJV	NIV	KJV
Soul	110	475	25	58
Life	165	117	37	40
Person	25	29
Spirit	5
Mind	3	15	3	3
Heart	21	15	4	1
Yourselves	19	6
Himself	18	8
Any	11	3
Creature	10	9
Themselves	10	3
Number of miscellaneous words & phrases appearing >10 to 1 times	301	53	25	1
Not Translated	47	0	8	2
TOTALS	754	753	102	105

Number of times Hebrew and Greek words are translated into certain English words.
Translated as:	ruah		neshama		leb		Kilyah		’ob		elohim		pneuma		autos		sympsych
	NIV	KJV	NIV	KJV	NIV	KJV	NIV	KJV	NIV	KJV	NIV	KJV	NIV	KJV	NIV	KJV	NIV	KJV
Spirit	182	232	2	2	1		1		1		1		325	317	1		1
Spirits (angels, evil spirits)	4								16				34	42
Soul				1
Breath	31	27	18	17									3
Wind	94	92											2
Mind	6	5			28	12	4						1
Heart	4				384	517	6						1
Number of miscellaneous words & phrases appearing >4 to 1 times	69	22	22	4	187	64	20	31	15	17	2601 God	2606	13	21	5592 pronouns	5785

See also

• Human spirit
• Immortality
• On the Soul by Aristotle
• Soul in the Bible

References

• Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament (3 Volume Set), March, 1993, by Horst Balz

• Hoffman, Joel M. And God Said: How Translations Conceal the Bible's Original Meaning, Chapter 4.
• biblehub.com, Nephesh
• ecclesia.org
• http://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/hebrew/nas/nephesh.html biblestudytools.com lexicons, Hebrew word Nephesh use count]
• http://www.varady.org/prvSR/writings/biblical/thoushall.cfm
• The first occurrence of nephesh in the Bible is Gen. 1:20, "the moving creature that hath life (nephesh)".
• Dan. 3:64
• Job 12:10
• Archie T. Wright, “The Spirit in Early Jewish Biblical Interpretation: Examing John R. Levison’s Filled with the Spirit,” Pneuma 33(2011) 37.
• [1]
• biblehub.com, Living Creature
• Strong's Lexicon #2421b
• biblehub.com Strong's Concordance, tsiyyi
• Compare Psalm 16:10 and Acts 2:27; Also, SDA Bible Commentary (Review and Herald; Washington DC, 1960), Vol.8, Bible Dictionary, p.1037 notes "The usage of the Greek word psuche in the NT is similar to that of nephesh in the OT."
• Numbers come from Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance and Zondervan’s Exhaustive NIV Concordance.