Nephesh in the Rest of the Hebrew Scriptures (1): Sellers on the Soul—Part VII

[Previous installments: I, II, III, IV, V, VI.]

In this post we select for examination verses in the Hebrew scriptures, following the five books of Moses, that illustrate Otis Q. Sellers’s thesis that King James’s Bible translators were allergic to the truth of nephesh, a truth they obscured whenever it threatened some doctrine of the Church of England. He lists every verse in which nephesh appears, but singles out only some for emphasis, starting with Joshua 2:13:

And that ye will save alive my father, and my mother, and my brethren, and my sisters, and all that they have, and deliver our lives (נַפְשֹׁתֵ֖ינוּ, naphshotenu, from nephesh) from death.

But, Sellers observes, life “cannot die, so it cannot be delivered from death. There can be no such thing as dead life. It is as contradictory as hot ice.”

And when I saw that ye delivered me not, I put my life (נַפְשִׁ֤י, naphshi, from nephesh) in my hands …. (Judges 12:3)

His soul, his very status as a person, not his “life.” Further, Sellers notes in commenting on Judges, the “soul (נַפְשׁוֹ֙, naphshow), can be put in jeopardy and this danger was from men” (Judges 5:18); “can tread down men of strength (5:21), “can be cast away” (9:17), “grieve” (10:16), “die” (Judges 18:25), “become bitter and are lost in death” (Judges 18:25).

The “fifty-one occurrences of the word nephesh” in 1 and 2 Samuel, are also “in perfect harmony with all the truth we have discovered this far.” He finds the same in every verse of 1 and 2 Kings in which nephesh occurs, but alights upon 1 Kings 17:21-22:

And he [Elijah] stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child’s soul (נֶֽפֶשׁ, nephesh) come into him again. And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul (נֶֽפֶשׁ, nephesh) of the child came into him again, and he revived.

“In this record,” Sellers writes, “we find that Elijah prayed for the return of the child’s soul, and that the child’s soul came into him again. From this it would appear that the soul was some part of the child that had gone somewhere, and at the petition of Elijah it returned to the child again. But this is repugnant to Genesis 2:7 where God tells us so plainly just what a soul is.

It is evident that this is the same figure of speech as we found in Genesis 35:18. [See our discussion here.] There we discovered that the soul departing meant that the person had died, and, therefore, the soul returning means that the person is restored to life. This is in complete harmony with the context of these verses, and a consideration of the context will shed further light upon this passage.

In verse 17 we read that the boy fell sick, and his sickness was so severe that no breath (נְשָׁמָֽה, neshamah) was left in him. The first occurrence of נְשָׁמָֽה neshamah is in Genesis 2:7 [see our discussion here], so we know that the thing that had gone out of this boy was the very thing that God breathed into Adam which made him a living soul. It was the presence of this breath (neshamah) that made the boy a living soul, but this breath had been withdrawn and had returned to God who gave it. Therefore, the thing needed to make that child a living soul once more was the return of the breath or spirit. So, Elijah prayed that the soul of the boy shall come to him again, and we are told that the soul came again and he lived. He presented the boy to his mother with the announcement, “Thy son liveth.” This was the result of the breath (neshamah) being given again making the child a living soul. (My emphasis.—A. G. F.)

To see that Sellers is not “changing or even denying a passage to make it support some preconception,” as he feared some detractors would accuse of him doing, we conclude this post by reproducing his discussion of figures of speech.

One of the very common ones is called metonymy. In this figure one word is put for another which it suggests. For example, we speak of “a good table” and by this we mean “good food.” This form is called metonymy of the adjunct, and by its use something closely related to the subject is put for the subject itself.

The most common form of this figure is called metonymy of the effect. This is when the effect is put for the cause producing it. We say, “turn off the light,” but we mean turn off the lamp. We have put the effect for the cause. . . . Or, when the father says, “Willie, stop that noise”; what he probably means is that Willie should stop hammering on the floor, but he puts the effect for the cause. Again, have you ever tried to “light a fire”? You would feel quite foolish if you tried to light a fire, for a fire is by its nature always alight.

. . . Imagine a Frenchman, studying English, who has learned that pair means two things of a kind and that trousers mean an outer garment worn by men covering the lower half of the body. Will he understand what we mean when we speak to him of a “pair of trousers”? Absolutely not, until he studies and becomes familiar with English figures of speech. . . .

In 1 Corinthians 11:27 we read, “drink this cup,” Does this mean just what it says, or is it a figure of speech by which the cup is put for the contents? Will any insist that the Bible means just what it says here?

In Matthew 3:5 we read, “Then went out to Him Jerusalem,” Did the city go, or the inhabitants?

In Genesis 25:23 the Lord said to Rebekah, “Two nations are in thy womb.” The only way this statement can be true is to recognize in it a figure of speech in which the effect is put for the cause. . . .

Figures of speech are the language of the emotions. We use them in times of stress and excitement. They speak our feelings, even though they may not always be true to the facts. Thus, the sight of a boy pounding on the floor may not disturb us, but the noise it creates does, so we say, “stop that noise.” We cannot see a man’s spirit, but we can see its effect in making man a living soul. So it is not strange that Elijah in his great stress put the effect for cause and prayed for the return of the child’s soul.

. . . figures do not prove facts, but facts do explain figures.

To be continued.