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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.

  • Ecclesiastes 6:7
    All the labour of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled.
  • Ecclesiastes 6:9
    Better is the sight of the eyes than the wandering of the desire: this is also vanity and vexation of spirit.
  • Ecclesiastes 7:28
    Which yet my soul seeketh, but I find not: one man among a thousand have I found; but a woman among all those have I not found.
  • Song of Solomon 1:7
    Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions?
  • Song of Solomon 3:1
    By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.
  • Song of Solomon 3:2
    I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.
  • Song of Solomon 3:3
    The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?
  • Song of Solomon 3:4
    It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.
  • Song of Solomon 5:6
    I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer.
  • Song of Solomon 6:12
    Or ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Amminadib.