Properly, a breathing creature , i.e. animal of (abstractly) vitality ; used very widely in a literal, accommodated or figurative sense (bodily or mental)
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נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh) is a wide-ranging Hebrew noun that may refer to a living creature, a person or self, life, desire, appetite, or, in some bodily settings, the throat or neck. English “soul” is sometimes a fitting translation, but it becomes misleading when readers import one fixed philosophical definition into every occurrence.
Reader summary
Full entry for נֶפֶשׁ (H5315) · Open the biblical lexicon
נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh) is a wide-ranging Hebrew noun that may refer to a living creature, a person or self, life, desire, appetite, or, in some bodily settings, the throat or neck. English “soul” is sometimes a fitting translation, but it becomes misleading when readers import one fixed philosophical definition into every occurrence.
The BSB source-word alignment has 754 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include my soul (62), . . . (59), my life (28), his life (24), your life (22).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at Genesis 1:20. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (144), Jeremiah (62), Leviticus (60), Proverbs (56).
נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh) is a wide-ranging Hebrew noun that may refer to a living creature, a person or self, life, desire, appetite, or, in some bodily settings, the throat or neck. English “soul” is sometimes a fitting translation, but it becomes misleading when readers import one fixed philosophical definition into every occurrence. The immediate subject, verb, bodily image, and literary setting determine whether a passage speaks of a creature, a life at risk, a whole person, an inward longing, or another part of the range.
Genesis establishes the word's embodied breadth. The waters teem with living nephesh in Genesis 1:20, so the noun is not reserved for humans. In Genesis 2:7, the ground-formed human receives the breath of life and becomes a living nephesh. The verse does not depict a completed body receiving nephesh as an independent object; it describes the human becoming a living being by God's gift. Shared creature-language does not erase the distinct image-bearing vocation that Genesis assigns to humanity elsewhere.
Torah also uses nephesh where life and blood are at issue. Genesis 9:4 prohibits eating flesh with its lifeblood, and Leviticus 17:11 places the life of the flesh and atonement language within sacrificial instruction. These verses should not be converted into modern physiology or made to settle every question about body and soul. Deuteronomy 6:5 uses nephesh in Israel's comprehensive call to love the Lord, not as a diagram dividing a person into separable components. The word can gather the living self in worship and covenant allegiance.
Poetry, prophecy, and servant texts extend that personal range. The nephesh longs for God in Psalm 42, the servant pours out His life to death in Isaiah 53, and Ezekiel 18 uses the noun for persons who belong to God and answer for their own sin. Christian readers may compare the New Testament's varied psychē language and its teaching about life, death, Christ, and resurrection, but no one-word equation supplies a complete anthropology. Nephesh corrects contempt for embodied life while leaving the wider canon to teach personal continuity, judgment, resurrection, and the believer's final hope in Christ.
H5315 moves among living creatures, the human as a living being, lifeblood, sacrificial life, wholehearted covenant devotion, personal longing, the servant's poured-out life, and accountable persons. Its breadth demands contextual translation while resisting both body-denying dualism and one-word denials of spiritual reality.
And God said, “Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the sky.”
The creation account calls the water creatures living nephesh, demonstrating that this noun is not restricted to human beings.
Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being.
The Lord forms the human from ground-dust, gives the breath of life, and the human becomes a living being.
But you must not eat meat with its lifeblood still in it.
The post-flood food command prohibits eating flesh with its lifeblood, using nephesh within an embodied life-and-blood setting.
For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for your souls upon the altar; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul.
Within sacrificial instruction, the life of flesh is associated with blood that God gives on the altar for atonement.
And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
Israel must love the Lord with the whole nephesh alongside heart and strength, expressing comprehensive covenant allegiance.
As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul longs after You, O God.
The psalmist's nephesh longs for God through the bodily image of a deer panting for flowing water.
Therefore I will allot Him a portion with the great, and He will divide the spoils with the strong, because He has poured out His life unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors. Yet He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.
The servant pours out His nephesh to death while bearing sin and interceding for transgressors, foregrounding His given life.
Behold, every soul belongs to Me; both father and son are Mine. The soul who sins is the one who will die.
God claims every nephesh and identifies the sinner who dies within the chapter's rejection of blame transferred from parent to child.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Vitality or lifeforce of a creature; ranges from physical breath to desire, appetite, and personal identity or selfhood.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 1 selected witness from 757 lexical occurrence verses.
נֶפֶשׁ is built from this root:
The proverb emphasizes that the effects of kindness return to the whole person.Proverbs 11:17
Greek words that correspond to or develop the meaning of this Hebrew word in the New Testament.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Nephesh teaches lexical patience because its contexts are more varied than the English word “soul” suggests. Genesis calls water creatures living nephesh and says that the dust-formed human became a living nephesh when God gave breath. That shared creaturely vocabulary encourages humility without erasing humanity's image-bearing vocation. Genesis 9 and Leviticus 17 use the noun around life and blood, but Leviticus speaks inside sacrificial instruction and should not be reduced to a biological formula.
Deuteronomy 6 summons the entire living self to love the Lord, while Psalm 42 gives personal longing an embodied voice. Isaiah 53 speaks of the servant pouring out His life to death, and Ezekiel 18 uses nephesh for accountable persons who belong to God. These texts neither teach that humans are ghosts housed in disposable bodies nor provide a lexical argument against conscious personal existence beyond death.
Christian doctrine must receive the wider witness concerning creation, sin, death, Christ's resurrection, the intermediate state, and bodily resurrection. The pastoral gain is substantial: embodied needs matter, desire can be directed toward God, each person is accountable, and final hope rests in God's resurrection promise rather than in a disputed gloss.
Gen.2.7
H5315 is a feminine noun whose contextual range includes creature, person, self, life, soul, desire, appetite, throat, and neck. Possessive forms, governing verbs, bodily imagery, and discourse referents guide translation. Its many renderings reflect real semantic breadth, not several unrelated words hidden under one Strong's number.
The Septuagint and New Testament often use psychē where English translations choose life, person, or soul. Jesus' teaching about losing and saving one's psychē, the identification of people as psychai, and the New Testament's resurrection hope must each be read contextually. The Greek term does not automatically import every H5315 sense, and Christian anthropology depends on the canon's full teaching.