Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

SOUL

Although Heb. nepeš has a wide range of usage, it most frequently designates the life force of living creatures. Thus, all the earth is full of “living creatures” that have the “breath of life” (Gen. 1:20-21, 24, 30). When God creates Adam, God breathes the breath of life into Adam’s nostrils, and Adam becomes a “living being” (Gen. 2:7). Far from referring simply to one aspect of a person, “soul” refers to the whole person. Thus, a corpse is referred to as a “dead soul,” even though the word is usually translated “dead body” (Lev. 21:11; Num. 6:6). “Soul” can also refer to a person’s very life itself 1 Kgs. 19:4; Ezek. 32:10).

“Soul” often refers by extension to the whole person. Thus, Leah bears Jacob 16 souls (Gen. 46:18), and when Jacob moves into Egypt, there were “70 persons (‘souls’) in his house” (v. 27). In the Shema (Deut. 6:4-9) Israelites are commanded to love their God with all their heart, soul, and strength. Although “soul” appears in the translation to be a separate faculty of the body, the verse is an exhortation to love God with one’s entire self.

The soul is also the seat of the emotions. It is both the center of joy in God (Ps. 86:4; cf. 62:1[MT 2]) and the seat of the desire of evil in the wicked (Prov. 21:10).

In the NT “soul” (Gk. psychḗ) refers to the living being of the whole person (Acts 2:41; 3:23) and to a person’s life. After Herod’s death, the angel commands Joseph to take his wife and child (Jesus) back to Israel, for “those who were seeking the child’s life (soul) are dead” (Matt. 2:20). Before he heals the man with the withered hand, Jesus asks the synagogue authorities whether it is lawful on the sabbath to “save life (soul) or to kill” (Mark 3:4). In the parable of the rich young fool (Luke 12:13-20), the young man says to his soul that he has ample goods laid up for many years; Jesus then tells him, “This very night your soul (‘life force’) is being demanded of you.”

Although the NT contains little evidence of the body-soul dualism that is apparent in Hellenistic philosophy, some passages indicate that the soul lives on after death (Luke 9:25; 12:4; 21:19). While Plato, in the myth of Er in The Republic, seems to argue for the preexistence of souls, the Bible offers evidence of no such belief. Some early Christian thinkers like Origen apparently believed that the earthly body was a prison in which the soul was bound for some evil it had committed in the heavenly realm. As to the immortality of souls, the clearest biblical example may be found in Revelation, where the “souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God” are asked to rest a “little longer” until the final judgment (Rev. 20:4).

Henry L. Carrigan, Jr.

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

SOUL

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)