Nephesh — Soul, Living Being
Not a ghost inside a body: in Genesis 2:7 man became a living nephesh — a whole breathing person. Animals are nephesh too.
properly, a breathing creature, i.e. animal of (abstractly) vitality; used very widely in a literal, accommodated or figurative sense (bodily or mental)
KJV translations: 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.
Nephesh in the Bible — example verses
“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 1:20 (KJV)
“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 1:21 (KJV)
“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 1:24 (KJV)
“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 1:30 (KJV)
“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 2:7 (KJV)
“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 2:19 (KJV)
“But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.”Genesis 9:4 (KJV)
“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 9:5 (KJV)
These are the first 8 of 683 occurrences. See every verse containing H5315, with Strong's tagging and study tools:
Open H5315 in the Ekdia Concordance →Related Spirit, Soul & Life words
Definitions from Strong's Exhaustive Concordance. Verse text from the King James Version. Study any word free at Ekdia — no ads, no subscriptions.