Sermon Tone Analysis

The Human Soul

Deut 6:4-5

Deut 6:

Soul נֶ֫פֶשׁ ( nefeš)

Some people have a very clear categories in their mind when they say “Your body, your psyche, your soul and your spirit” about these few words.

But the category of “soul” (especially to the Asian ears) kind of gets a little fuzzy sometimes.

It seems like a disembodied essence of you which you can carry for ever and ever.

When neuroscience tries to explain something like “mind” and “thoughts” as actually just synaptic process or material stuff that is going on, it seems like it is opposite of the common perception of a non-material entity.

People often assume the idea of an eternal, non-physical existence that human living on after death apart from their bodies as “disembodied souls”, they assume this was the main teaching of the Bible, but actually it is quite the contrary.

The word “soul” is used in the Bible not the way we use in English.

Most people’s understanding about “soul” is hardly what the Bible means about “soul.”

There is a misunderstanding between our concepts and what the biblical text has to say.

And at the same time, we also miss out what the text actually wanted to say to us about it.

The word “soul” comes from the Old English sāwol, sāw(e)l, of Germanic origin

Oxford English Dictionary: first literary, datable usage was ini 8th century Beowulf.

It was referring to a non-physical essence, a category in the 8th century.

An etymology dictionary says that it may come from a proto-Germanic word Seele which means “see.”

It seems like this word has existed in European languages referring to a non-physical, disembodied you or essence of you, which could not survive death since it is not physical.

The idea was imported from a Platonic and Aristotelian “soul” or the word in Greek ψυχή (psuchē), which refers to an eternal, non-physical, immortal entity that exists after death.

In fact, the material world is just a second rate; the purest world is still the non-existent one.

So you find the notion of “my soul is imprisoned/trapped inside a body,” which is Platonic philosophy.

This word is closer to the English word psyche, which refers more to the mind.

But the Bible is not talking about a disembodied part of you.

Both the OT Hebrew and NT Greek, there is a category of words where can be used to describe the enduring, human person after death.

But the usage is very rare.

The word “human” actually also means “body.”

In the NIV translation, the English has “soul” occurring like 160 times in 39 books, and question: Has it been referring to where you are going to go when you die?

The answer is NO!

Quite on the contrary, whenever the word “soul” appears, 72 out of 100 times in the OT, it is translating the Hebrew word nefeš (which occurs 754 times in the OT).

So think about that, nefeš has been used very commonly, just like the word “God,” “place,” “walk,” “sea,” etc.

Only 10% of the time the word nefeš is translated as “soul” in English.

Range of meaning of the word in different context and carries different nuances:

Most common: life

Soul

Me

Lives, the living

I

Heart

themselves, you, people, anyone

This word is really plastic and broad.

We want to survey the breadth of it.

It’s so common like the word “aiyah” or “lah” or “hor” etc.

Just like in English, the word “life”: my physical life, all my life (=years; length of time), get a life (=have a social network), biological life, not on your life (=worth of life), etc. just like the word nefeš.

Ps 23:11

He refreshes my nefeš.

The me here is a “sheep” as a governing metaphor.

When I eat green grass and drink clean water, then my nefeš is refreshed.

But the “soul” here makes it feel really more spiritual.

If it says, He refreshes my “body” it would become very physical.

Ps 42:111-2

So my nefeš pants and thirst for God.

Me, as a deer, and God as the source of life that is refreshing.

As they water can refresh the physical something, so God too can refresh and bring life to the nefeš.

We might be tempted to say that, “Sure!

Water is physical, God is Spirit, so he refreshes the non-physical part of me.”

But is that what it was actually saying?

Ps 42:1

So my nefeš pants for you

If you look at the Hebrew text, the most basic meaning of nefeš is throat.

This often happens.

Just like the word chabod that gets translated as “glory” or “weight,” the most basic meaning is heavy or weighty.

So the original word did not immediately mean glory, it is just that when translators look at the full range of nuances, this word “glory” in English seems to be able to connect it altogether.

So how did the throat get to mean the soul?

Num 11:

V6 in the Hebrew reads “but now our nefeš has dried up and there is nothing to look at except this manna!”

And so God went on to give them meat and then water.

Our nefeš is dry: it clearly cannot mean their disembodies entity, because here is clearly means they are hungry and thirsty.

This

The English translations usually paraphrase it that you can’t see the nuances.

So which part of your body dries up when you are hungry or thirsty?

It is the throat!

Isaiah 58:11

“satisfy your nefeš”

This was post-apocalyptic Babylon burning your whole country to the ground, but God wants to satisfy your nefeš in these scorched places and you will like a watered garden.

Your nefeš will be restored and thenyou will become a source of restoration for others.

But once again, this image of dry, nefeš, and the opposite of it is very vicerol images.

Ps 69

Depending on translations:

NASB: for the waters have threatened my life (nefeš)

NIV: waters have come up to my nefeš

So if the nefeš is just a metaphor for life, then what does it mean if the water comes up to you life/soul?

But NIV says it in a basic meaning, which nefeš is really a metaphor for drowning, for a really bad day...

Ps 105

v18 - NASB: he himself was laid up in iron

NIV: his nefeš was put into iron

So here you have the image of shackles on his feet and shackles around his nefeš

The only time when nefeš refers to a particular part of the body.

nefeš is put in iron; nefeš is dry and thirsty; there is a Hebrew word for neck, and a word for the whole

Oesophagus is nefeš; or the metaphor of what goes in and out of the throat

He describes how terrifying it is going to be to live in Jerusalem when Babylon comes to town…she would breathe out her nefeš.

The verb form of nefeš is נפח (nafaḥ) just like how God would breathe out on the lump of clay in .

So here, she is breathing out her nefeš for the last time.

Here it looks more like the רוּחַ (rǔaḥ) or spirit/breath/life-breath/wind.

When a person dies, he gives up his rǔaḥ; and God gives you your rǔaḥ and he can take it away.

So rǔaḥ is the invisible energy and refers to nefeš the body part.

Your rǔaḥ is in and out of your nefeš.

But nefeš can refer to the physical thing, or it can also mean the passage way in and out—your “lifeline” that is in your body

It is a weird thing to say in English when you are dying, you are giving out your throat.

Here in is a poetic metaphor of a woman breathing out her ______.

You would expect breath to filled in the blank, but what she breathes out is her nefeš.