neshamah

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 meaningalthough ‘soul’ is not an easy word to understand!

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