Midvash

נֶפֶשׁnephesh

soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, appetite, emotion, and passion

Pronunciation: neh'-fesh · Hebrew/Aramaic (Old Testament) · H5315

Meanings

1. the soul, the inner being of man, = that which breathes, the breathing substance or being

a. body (Isaiah 10:18; Deuteronomy 12:23; Proverbs 11:17)

b. all poetical (Job 14:22; Psalms 42:5; Psalms 42:7)

c. and it came to pass when her soul was going forth, for she died (Genesis 35:18; Jeremiah 15:9; 1 Kings 17:21)

2. The נפשׁ becomes a living being (Genesis 2:7; Genesis 2:19; Psalms 104:29)

3. The נפשׁ (without חיה noun or verb) is specified

a. a living being whose life resides in the blood (Deuteronomy 12:23; Deuteronomy 12:24; Leviticus 17:10)

b. a serious attack upon the life is an attack upon this inner living being (2 Samuel 1:9; Jeremiah 4:10; Jonah 2:6)

c. used for life itself (Proverbs 12:10; Genesis 44:30; Exodus 21:23)

…

Same root

Where it appears

Appears 754 times in the Bible.

  • Genesis 1:20 Then God said, “Let the waters swarm with fish and other life. Let the skies be filled with birds of every kind.”
  • Genesis 1:21 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that scurries and swarms in the water, and every sort of bird—each producing offspring of the same kind. And God saw that it was good.
  • Genesis 1:24 Then God said, “Let the earth produce every sort of animal, each producing offspring of the same kind—livestock, small animals that scurry along the ground, and wild animals.” And that is what happened.
  • Genesis 1:30 And I have given every green plant as food for all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—everything that has life.” And that is what happened.
  • Genesis 2:7 Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.
  • Genesis 2:19 So the Lord God formed from the ground all the wild animals and all the birds of the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and the man chose a name for each one.
See every passage

Source: Brown, Driver and Briggs, Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), public domain; markup by unfoldingWord, CC BY (github.com/unfoldingWord/Brown-Driver-Briggs-Enhanced).