TR: nephesh → psychē (Soul / Life)

The Chain

Hebrew OT              LXX (Greek OT)          Greek NT
──────────────         ───────────────          ────────
נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh)  →   ψυχή (psychē)       →   ψυχή (psychē)
H5315, 682 verses      ~599x as translation     94 verses in NT
"breathing creature,   of nephesh               "soul, life"
 life, self, person"

OT Usage (Hebrew)

Strong's	Word	Unique Verses	Primary Meaning
H5315	נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh)	682	animated creature, life-force, person, self, appetite
H5314	נָפַשׁ (naphash)	3	breathe, refresh oneself (root verb)

Key OT passages: - Gen 2:7 — "man became a living soul (nephesh chayyah)" — nephesh = the whole animated human, not a separable part - Lev 17:11 — "the life (nephesh) of the flesh is in the blood: I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls" - Ps 103:1 — "Bless the LORD, O my soul (nephesh)" — first-person self-address; nephesh = "I myself"

[Full canonical study: H5315-nephesh.md]

LXX Bridge

Hebrew	Greek Translation	Count	Notes
nephesh (H5315)	ψυχή (psychē, G5590)	599x	PMI 4.97 — overwhelmingly primary
nephesh (H5315)	ζωή (zōē, G2222)	22x	Life-force uses
nephesh (H5315)	ἐπιθυμέω (epithymeō, G1937)	12x	Appetite/desire uses

Semantic shift in translation: The LXX renders nephesh with psychē consistently, but the Greek word carried Platonic connotations of an immortal, disembodied soul that are absent from the Hebrew. Nephesh is always the whole animated creature; psychē in Greek philosophical usage often denotes a soul distinct from and superior to the body. This tension is visible in the NT, where psychē can mean either "life" (Mark 8:36) or function as the whole self (Acts 2:41).

NT Usage (Greek)

Strong's	Word	NT Verses	Primary Meaning
G5590	ψυχή (psychē)	94	soul, life, self; human being

Book concentration: 1 Peter (5.7/100), Acts (1.6/100), Revelation (1.7/100), Gospels (~1.0/100)

Key NT passages: - Matthew 16:25-26 — "whosoever will lose his life (psychē) for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul (psychē)?" — one verse: life risked; next verse: soul weighed against the world - Acts 2:41 — "there were added unto them about three thousand souls (psychē)" — counting persons, exactly like OT nephesh in census use - Revelation 6:9 — "I saw under the altar the souls (psychē) of them that were slain for the word of God" — apocalyptic vision-symbol; psychē = the slain lives poured out, echoing "the blood of thy brother crieth" (Gen 4:10) and "the life (nephesh) is in the blood" (Lev 17:11). The martyrs' cry for vindication is figurative, not a statement that souls exist consciously detached from the body - 1 Peter 1:9 — "Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls (psychē)" — whole persons saved, not just an immaterial part - Hebrews 4:12 — "piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul (psychē) and spirit (pneuma)" — psychē distinguished from pneuma, the only clear NT division

Direct OT→NT Quotations

NT Verse	Quotes OT	Shared Word	Significance
Matt 22:37	Deut 6:5	nephesh → psychē	"love the LORD… with all thy soul" — shema carried verbatim into NT
Luke 12:20	—	nephesh concept	"this night thy soul (psychē) shall be required of thee" — direct echo of OT "life required" idiom

Continuity and Shifts

What stays the same across testaments: - Psychē = whole person, countable individual (Acts 2:41 = nephesh census use) - Psychē = life at risk, life to be saved or lost (Mark 8:36; Matt 10:39 = OT life/jeopardy idiom) - Psychē as seat of emotion and longing (John 12:25; 1 Pet 1:9)

What shifts: - NT psychē keeps the Hebrew totality-of-self meaning throughout; it never denotes a disembodied, immortal entity. The "souls under the altar" (Rev 6:9; cf. 20:4) belong to apocalyptic vision-symbolism — the slain lives crying for vindication, like Abel's blood (Gen 4:10) — and should not be read as a doctrinal shift toward a conscious soul existing apart from the body - The Shema (Deut 6:5) carries nephesh intact into NT Greek via psychē (Matt 22:37), preserving the Hebrew totality-of-self meaning even in a Greek frame - NT introduces the psychē/pneuma distinction (Heb 4:12; 1 Thess 5:23) which has no direct parallel in the OT Hebrew usage of nephesh

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Generated from: gather_word_data.py H5315, gather_word_data.py G5590, search_strongs.py --lxx-map, --hebrew-source Last updated: 2026-04-01