VARIOUS MEANINGS OF THE WORD SOUL.
By Uriah Smith
IN the Advent Herald of Aug. 10, 1861, occurs this paragraph: “We find the following in ‘The Sabbath Herald’ of July 30, which teaches the view that the soul is expressive of the entire man: ‘A prayer that has no faith in it, is like a human body without a soul in it.’—Ed.” Does the Editor of the Herald think there is anything in this inconsistent with our position? Does he think there is any contradiction of what we believe? Surely he is better posted in this controversy than to suppose that any of us regard the word soul as exclusively94confined to one meaning. If not, we can correct that misapprehension, on authority which we doubt not will be current even with him. The word from which soul is principally translated in the Old Testament is neh-phesh, occurring 745 times, and being translated soul 473 times. This word occurs in Gen. xxxv, 18, and 1 Kings xvii, 21, 22, in which instances, Parkhurst, a celebrated linguist and lexicographer, thinks it should most properly be rendered breath. In addition to instances where it embraces the whole man, the Hebrew Concordance shows it to have been translated in the following different ways: Life, person, mind, heart, body, will, appetite, lust, thing. In the New Testament soul comes wholly from ψυχή, a word which occurs 105 times and is translated soul, life, mind, heart, us, and you. On the words in Matt. xvi, 25, “For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul,” Dr. Clarke says: “On what authority may have translated the word ψυχή in the 25th verse, life, and in this verse soul, I know not, but am certain it means LIFE in both places.” Parkhurst, Clarke, and the translators of the Bible, are certainly authority over which it would not become any one to be captious; and on their authority the expression above referred to is vindicated from the use which the Herald would make of it; for it would be eminently proper to speak of a dead body as a human body without a soul [breath or life] in it; and such a body would be a fit emblem of prayers not animated by a living faith. U. SMITH.