Words · Hebrew Words · Lesson 4, word 3 of 5
נֶפֶשׁnefesh
A living being, the self, one's whole life.
Why this word is here. Translated soul, life, person, self, even appetite; Genesis 2:7 says the man became a nefesh, not that he received one.
What it means
The lexicon range is the widest in this set: soul, self, life, creature, person, appetite, mind, living being, desire, emotion, passion. Nefesh is the breathing being itself: a human or an animal as a living creature, the person as a self, the seat of appetite and desire ('my soul thirsts'), and life itself, which is in the blood.
Translators choose soul, life, person, self, or being verse by verse, which is why concordances make the word look several different words in English.
Where you meet it
Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.
Genesis 2:7 (BSB)
God breathes into the man 'and man became a living being (nefesh)'. The same phrase is used of the animals in Genesis 1.
And you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
Deuteronomy 6:5 (BSB)
Anchor verse 'Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul (nefesh), and with all your strength.' Nefesh here is the whole living self offered to God.
Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why the unease within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.
Psalm 42:11 (BSB)
'Why, my soul (nefesh), are you downcast?' The psalmist talks to his own nefesh like a companion in trouble.
Bless the LORD, O my soul; all that is within me, bless His holy name.
Psalm 103:1 (BSB)
'Bless the LORD, O my soul (nefesh).' The self summoned to worship with everything in it.
Why it matters
Nefesh protects a biblical view of the person: embodied, desiring, alive by God's breath, and addressed by God as a whole. It explains why Scripture can speak of souls hungering, thirsting, being poured out and being redeemed, without treating the body as packaging.
Watch out
The over-claim is to read the later Greek idea of an immortal soul-part, trapped in a body, back into nefesh. Nefesh is used of animals (Genesis 1:24, 'living creatures'), of a corpse in some legal texts (by extension), and of appetite ('the soul that eats'). That does not settle every question about human destiny, but it does mean 'soul' in the Old Testament usually means the whole living person, and sermons should not pretend otherwise.
In this lesson
- goel (from ga'al) (גֹּאֵל): The kinsman-redeemer who buys back and defends his own.
- mashiach (מָשִׁיחַ): An anointed one, king, priest, or the promised Messiah.
- lev / levav (לֵב): The inner person: mind, will and conscience, not only feelings.
- dabar (דָּבָר): A word, a matter, a thing, speech that does things.
Sources
- Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew Lexicon (BDB, 1906)
- Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible / STEP Hebrew data
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