Scriptural Meaning of the Word Soul.
To THE list of texts given in our last paper in which the Hebrew neh-phesh, soul, denotes personality or self-hood, must be added all those texts in which the term is applied to God. Lev. 26:11. And I will set my tabernacle among you; and my soul shall not abhor you.
Verse 30. And my soul shall abhor you.
Judges 10:16. And they . . . served the Lord; and his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel.
Prov. 6:16. These six things doth the Lord hate; yea, seven are an abomination unto him.
Isa. 1:14. Your appointed feasts my soul hateth.
Jer. 5:9. Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
Verse 29. The same words.
Jer. 6:8. Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my soul depart from thee.
Jer. 9:9. Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?
Jer. 12:7. I have given the dearly beloved of my soul into the hand of her enemies.
Jer. 14:9. Hath thy soul loathed Zion?
Jer. 15:1. Yet my mind (naph-shee, my soul) could not be toward this people.
Jer. 32:41. I will plant them in this land assuredly with my whole heart and with my soul.
Jer. 51:14. The Lord of hosts hath sworn by himself, etc.
Eze. 23:8. Then my mind was alienated from her.
Amos 6:8. The Lord God hath sworn by himself.
Zech. 11:8. And my soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me. In the following texts it is used of Christ in like manner:—
Ps. 16:10. Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, nor suffer thine holy one to see corruption.
Isa. 53:10. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.
Verse 11. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied.
Verse 12. Because he hath poured out his soul unto death. Of the meaning of the term in these texts there can be no question; they express in full the personality of the Being to whom they are applied. And the usage or method of use as applied to God, is precisely that applied to man, thus: “My soul loathed them, and their soul abhorred me.” That is, “I loathed them, and they abhorred me.” There is a somewhat remarkable usage in the Scriptures by which neh-phesh, soul, is applied to a dead person. This evidently because a man does not lose his personality in dying. Otherwise, no man could be identified after death. As the primary meaning of soul (neh-phesh) is person or creature, it is strictly correct to apply it to the dead, as a dead person, or dead creature. Lev. 19:28. Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead.—
Chap. 21:1. There shall none be defiled for the dead among his people.
Verse 11. Neither shall he go in to any dead body.
Chap. 22:4. Whoso toucheth anything that is unclean by the dead.
Num. 5:2. Whosoever is defiled by the dead.
Chap. 6:6. All the days that he separated himself unto the Lord, he shall come at no dead body.
Verse 11. And the priest shall . . . make atonement for him, for that he sinned by the dead.
Chap. 9:6. And there were certain men who were defiled by the dead body of a man.
Verse 7. And those men said unto him, We are defiled by the dead body of a man.
Verse 10. If any man of you or of your posterity shall be unclean by reason of a dead body.
Chap. 19:13. Whosoever toucheth the dead body of any man, that is dead.
Hag. 2:13. If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? Three of the above texts are peculiar in form, but they doubtless fully express the idea of all, the others appearing to be elliptical. Lev. 21:11 says: “Unto all souls of the dead he shall not come, for his father or for his mother he shall not be defiled.” This seems to be the exact opposite of Gen. 1:30, and others. “And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein is a soul of life, I have given every green herb for meat.” This translation is literally correct, but in the margin it is given, living soul, and also the same original in Gen. 2:7 is rendered living soul, speaking of man. And this is the usual form of expressing it. As Adam became a soul of life, or living soul, by having the breath of life imparted to his frame, so when the breath departs the man is very reasonably called a soul of death, or a dead soul. The expression in Lev. 21:11, is strong and clear. The high priest was not permitted to defile himself by contact with, or approaching unto, the souls of the dead. The idea conveyed in our version is unquestionably correct: “Neither shall he go in to any dead body,” or dead person; the word soul being used to express the person, whether living or dead. In justice to the reader of the English the translators should have given a marginal reading here which would have indicated the original, as they did in Gen. 1:30. Num. 6:6, is precisely the same except that neh-phesh is in the singular. Num. 19:13, has a peculiarity of its own, in additional words to emphasize the condition of the man, or soul of the man, as dead. “Whosoever toucheth the dead soul of the man that is dead.” Some authors maintain that in the other texts here quoted, math, to die, or death, is understood. The word neh-phesh, soul, is alone expressed, but the subject indicates that a soul of death, and not a soul of life, is meant. We have known people to be wonderfully shocked when the idea of a dead soul was presented to them. But the idea is not, by any means, unknown to the Scriptures. It is only because all their ideas of the subject are wrong, that they are shocked with expressions given by a literal rendering of the revelation of God to man.