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Strong's numbers

נֶפֶשׁ H5315

nephesh

neh'-fesh

from נָפַשׁ; properly, a breathing creature, i.e. animal of (abstractly) vitality; used very widely in a literal, accommodated or figurative sense (bodily or mental); any, appetite, beast, body, breath, creature, [idiom] dead(-ly), desire, [idiom] (dis-) contented, [idiom] fish, ghost, [phrase] greedy, he, heart(-y), (hath, [idiom] jeopardy of) life ([idiom] in jeopardy), lust, man, me, mind, mortally, one, own, person, pleasure, (her-, him-, my-, thy-) self, them (your) -selves, [phrase] slay, soul, [phrase] tablet, they, thing, ([idiom] she) will, [idiom] would have it.

Brown–Driver–Briggs

נֶ֫פֶשׁ 756 n.f. soul, living being, life, self, person, desire, appetite, emotion, and passion
1 = that which breathes, the breathing substance or being
2 The נפשׁ becomes a living being
3 The נפשׁ is specif.
4 The נפשׁ as the essential of man stands for the man himself
5 נפשׁ = seat of the appetites, in all periods (46 t.)
6 נ׳ = seat of emotions and passions
7 נפשׁ is used occasionally for mental acts
8 נפשׁ for acts of the will is dub.
9 נפשׁ = character is still more dub.
10 נ׳ in D

From Brown, Driver, and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), in the public domain.


683 occurrences

Shown in the King James Version (KJV), whichever translation you read in — it is the text these numbers are tagged against.

  • Genesis 1:20
    And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
  • Genesis 1:21
    And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
  • Genesis 1:24
    And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
  • Genesis 1:30
    And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
  • Genesis 2:7
    And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
  • Genesis 2:19
    And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
  • Genesis 9:4
    But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
  • Genesis 9:5
    And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man.
  • Genesis 9:10
    And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.
  • Genesis 9:12
    And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: