nephesh

‘AND THAT’S ALL THAT MATTERS’… BUT IS IT?

(July 19, 2022) Robert McQuillan challenges…

Psychologist Dr Andre Tessier, counselling a friend who is wondering about himself, who he really is, his future, answers honestly… ‘I’m only a doctor. I can’t tell something I don’t know… but let me show you something. See those books over there?’

Tapping several books in the packed bookshelves, he names Carl Jung and other well-known thinkers commenting, ‘Hundreds of books! Sum total of man’s knowledge of his fellowman. Yet in a moment like this, they fail. That’s why when I’m faced with such a moment, I always turn to this book, older than all the others by thousands of years.’  

Taking a black jacketed book, he searches through it. ‘Ah, here we are,’ he smiles, ‘Proverbs, twenty-third chapter, seventh verse,  “As he thinketh in his heart, so is he.”’

Leaving it with the troubled man to consider the reality of Solomon’s words, Dr Tessier encourages him tobelieve deeply in his heart, his soul, emphasising… ‘And that’s all that matters.’

Believing in one’s very soul
‘Heart’ is an interesting word found throughout that ‘ancient book’, speaking of various hearts troubled by  grief, deceit, discouragement, hatred, hardening (that’s the short list!).

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WORD MEANINGS… NEPHESH AND LEB

(July 19, 2022) Dr Jim McClure, noted theologian, explains …

There are two different Hebrew words in the Proverb 23:7 – nephesh and leb, that have in some English translations been translated by the word ‘heart.’  However, there a significant difference between the two Hebrew words.   

1) ‘Nephesh‘
This word is used many hundreds of times in the Hebrew Old Testament. In the KJV it is translated inmultiple ways such as, life, creature, soul, persons, mind, lust, heart, any, one, thing, yourself, dead, man and so on.

‘Nephesh‘ is a difficult word to translate into English, but its most frequent translation as ‘soul ‘ possibly comes closer to the meaning – although ‘soul’ is not an easy word to understand!

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