Scriptural Meaning of the Word Soul.
THE Hebrew word neh-phesh is sometimes rendered creature in the Authorized Version of the Old Testament. It might have been so rendered many times with the strictest propriety. Indeed, some scholars have rendered neh-phesh hhay-yah (Gen. 2:7, and others), a breathing creature, because the first word is from the verb nah-phash, the meaning of which is to breathe, and the second has its primary signification to live, and is hence applied to all creatures possessed of animal life. The first instances of the use of neh-phesh, in Gen. 1, 2, and 9, are of great importance in an investigation of this subject, as they show the first application and the primary meaning of the word, with the adjunct of life, or living, as above. Gen. 1:20. And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life. Heb., sheh-retz neh-phesh hhay-yah. This expresses somewhat more than the English, moving living creature. On the text Prof. Bush remarks:— "This may be rendered by apposition, and collectively, the living reptile, the living creature; but Rosenmüller prefers the construction by regimen [the genitive], the swarming reptile of a living soul, i. e., possessed of a living soul; and this is countenanced by the Greek, herpeta psuchōn zōōn, creeping things of living souls. To the leading sense of the term it is not material which of the readings we adopt, and grammatical canons will warrant either." Gen. 1:21. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth. Verse 24. Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind. Verse 30. To everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life. Gen. 2:7. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. We give this text in this connection because it should not be an exceptional use of the phrase, as the Authorized Version really makes it. Prof. Bush, who, as an unbeliever of the resurrection of the dead, spiritualized everything as far as it was possible, without doing open injustice to the text, gave Gen. 2:7 in his list of passages in which neh-phesh, accompanied with hhay-yah, has the sense of living creature. It was an inexcusable error of the translators to render the phrase different from its rendering in the preceding texts. Gen. 2:19. And whatsoever Adam called any living creature, that was the name thereof. Gen. 9:12. This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you, and every living creature. Verse 16. That I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature. Closely related to these instances is the following:— Lev. 24:18. He that killeth a beast shall make it good: beast for beast. Heb., neh-phesh tah-hhath neh-phesh. On this text Prof. Bush says: "The established rendering undoubtedly gives the true sense, but it would have been better to have translated according to the letter, as we feel at once the violence of rendering neh-phesh by beast." This is an exceedingly strange remark, for, 1. Inasmuch as it is conceded that neh-phesh admits of various renderings, it would seem that that rendering is nearest to "the letter" which gives the "true sense" of the original. 2. There is no more "violence" in rendering neh-phesh by beast, than in rendering it by creature, if the creature to which it refers is a beast. 3. There is no violence done to a text of Scripture by a translation which gives the true sense of the original. The violence was evidently done only to the theory of the man who thus wrote. 4. If, in giving the "true sense" of a text, "violence" is done to a theory, that theory stands condemned by the text. Thus sensitive are people who have a theory of their own to maintain, in regard to the application of the original for soul, which, as Dr. Clarke says, is applied to every grade of animals, even to the very lowest manifestations of animal life. In the remark quoted above, no doubt Prof. Bush intended to intimate that the literal rendering of Lev. 24:18 would be life for life. It would still remain that neh-phesh is applied to the life of beasts as well as of men, and he would gain nothing to his theory. But the primary signification of the word is creature or person, and life is a signification acquired by association, as it is always applied to those creatures which have life—animal life. That no violence is done in the established rendering in this case is further shown by another expression in the text and in the context. Lev. 24:17 says: "He that killeth any man shall surely be put to death." For "killeth" the Hebrew has, "smiteth the soul of a man." Verse 18 has the same form of expression in reference to the beast. "He that smiteth the soul of a beast shall make it good; soul for soul." If soul and beast are not identical here, it will be hard to prove identity in any case. And yet it is claimed that in Gen. 2:7 there was a soul superadded to the creature or man. This is certainly not in the record; the assertion is not justified by the record. If Gen. 2:7 were in all respects like Chap. 1:30, the claim would be urged with greater confidence than it now is. The latter text now reads: "To everything that creepeth upon the earth wherein is a living soul." Now it is affirmed that, in distinction from the lower animals, man has a living soul superadded to him, within him. But, unfortunately for that theory, this form of expression is used in reference to the lower animals instead of to man. The texts in which a soul is said to eat and drink, to be possessed of animal appetites and passions, are so numerous that we fear the reader would be wearied were we to quote them all. But this class of texts we must notice. In every one of these the word neh-phesh, soul, refers to a person, or physical being, or creature. Person or creature would be a correct translation in all such cases.