Journal: Conspectus
Volume: CONSPECTUS 27:1 (Mar 2019)
Article: The Semantic Field Of The Hebrew Word נֶפֶשׁ In The OT
Author: Hui Er Yu

---

Conspectus 27:1 (March 2019) p. 113

The Semantic Field Of The Hebrew Word נֶפֶשׁ In The OT1

Hui Er Yu

and

Johannes Malherbe

Keywords

נֶפֶשׁ, ψυχή, soul, anthropology, dichotomy

About The Authors2

Hui Er Yu

PhD, SATS (2017)

Johannes Malherbe

D.Th., University of Stellenbosch, Dr Malherbe is the Head of Academics at the South African Theological Seminary.

Abstract

The Hebrew anthropological term נֶפֶשׁ occurs 754 times in the Old Testament. It was rendered stereotypically as ψυχή in the LXX and later into English as ‘soul’. The later was viewed as a poor translation since it motivated Christians to develop a dichotomous conception of the human constitution. This has led to centuries-old controversy concerning the Hebraic conception of the person. Although the word נֶפֶשׁ is as hard to define as it is to translate, this article aims to determine its semantic field through a brief literature review of נֶפֶשׁ and its Greek equivalent ψυχή. The result indicates that the meanings of נֶפֶשׁ in the OT are more related to the physical aspects of human beings and that its translation as ‘soul’ calls for re-examination.

This article: https://www.sats.edu.za/yu-malherbe-semantic-range-nephesh-ot

Conspectus 27:1 (March 2019) p. 114

1. Introduction

The word נֶפֶשׁ, occurring 754 times in the MT3 of the OT, is ‘as hard to define as it is to translate’ (Jacob 1974, 9:617). For instance, KJV renders it variously as follows: ‘soul’ (475 times); ‘life’ (120 times); ‘person’ (26 times); a reflexive pronoun (20 times); ‘heart’ (16 times); ‘mind’ (15 times); ‘creature’ (ten times); the personal pronoun (nine times); ‘dead’ (five times); ‘body, dead body, pleasure’ (four times each); ‘desire, will’ (three times each) ‘man, thing, beast, appetite, ghost, lust’ (two times each); ‘breath’ (once), and so on. In 14 cases, KJV gives no English equivalents for נֶפֶשׁ (Murtonen 1958:9–10). In the example of its lexical meaning, DCH regards the sense of נֶפֶשׁ in Psalm 23:3 as ...

visitor : : uid: ()