DEPARTURE AND RETURN OF THE SOUL.
We have now examined all those passages in which the word spirit is used
in such a manner as to furnish what is claimed to be evidence of its
uninterrupted consciousness after the death of the body. We have found
them all easily explainable in harmony with other positive and literal
declarations of the Scriptures that the dead know not any thing, that
when a man’s breath goeth forth and he returneth to his earth, his very
thoughts perish, and that there is no wisdom nor knowledge nor device in
the grave to which we go. And so far the unity of the Bible system of
truth on this point is unimpaired, and the harmony of the testimony of
the Scriptures is maintained.
We will now examine those scriptures in which the term soul is supposed
to be used in a manner to favor the popular view. The first of these is
Gen. 35:18: “And it came to pass as her soul was in departing (for she
died), that she called his name Benoni.” This is adduced as evidence
that the soul departs when the body dies, and lives on in an active,
conscious condition.
Luther Lee remarks on this passage:--
“Her body did not depart. Her brains did not depart. There was nothing
which departed which could consistently be called her soul, only on the
supposition that there is in man an immaterial spirit which leaves the
body at death.”
We may offset this assertion of Luther Lee’s with the following
criticism from Prof. Bush:--
“_As her soul was in departing._ Heb. _betzeth naphshah, in the going
out of her soul_, or _life_. Gr., ἐν τω ἀφιεναι ἀυτην την ψυχην, _in her
sending out her life_. The language legitimately implies no more than
the departing or ceasing of the vital principle, whatever that be. In
like manner when the prophet Elijah stretched himself upon the dead
child, 1 Kings 17:21, and cried three times, saying, ‘O Lord my God, let
this child’s soul come into him again,’ he merely prays for the return
of his physical vitality.”--_Note on Gen. 35:18._
The Hebrew word here translated soul is _nephesh_, rendered in the
Septuagint by _psuche_; and it is unnecessary to remind those who have
read the chapter on Soul and Spirit that these words mean something
besides body and brains. They often signify that which can be said to
leave the body, as we shall presently see, rendering entirely uncalled
for the supposition of an immaterial spirit which Mr. Lee makes such
haste to adopt.
What then did depart, and what is the plain, simple import of the
declaration? We call the reader’s attention again to the criticism of
Parkhurst, the lexicographer, on this passage:--
“As a noun, _nephesh_ hath been supposed to signify the spiritual part
of man, or what we commonly call his soul. I must for myself confess
that I can find no passage where it hath undoubtedly this meaning. Gen.
35:18; 1 Kings 17:21, 22; Ps. 16:10, seem fairest for this
signification. But may not _nephesh_, in the three former passages, be
most properly rendered _breath_, and in the last, a breathing or animal
frame?”
Thus, while Mr. Parkhurst admits that Gen. 35:18, is the fairest
instance that can be found where _nephesh_ could be supposed to mean the
spiritual part of man, yet he will not so far hazard his reputation, as
a scholar and critic as to give it that meaning in this or any other
instance, declaring that here it may most properly be rendered “breath.”
And this is in harmony with the account of man’s creation, where it is
seen that the imparting of the breath of life is what made Adam a living
soul; and the loss of that breath, of course, reduces man again to a
state of death.
1 Kings 17:21, 22: “And the Lord heard the voice of Elijah, and the soul
of the child came into him again, and he revived.” In the light of the
foregoing criticism on Gen. 35:18, this text scarcely needs a passing
remark. The same principle of interpretation applies to this as to the
former. But one can hardly read such passages as this without noticing
how at variance they read with the popular view. The child, as a whole,
is the object with which the text deals. The child was dead. Something
called the soul, which the child is spoken of as having in possession,
had gone from him, which caused his death. This element, not the child
itself, but what belonged to the child, as a living being, came into him
again, and _the child_ revived.
But according to the immaterialist view, this passage should not so read
at all. For that makes the soul to be the child proper; and the passage
should read something like this: “And the Lord heard the voice of
Elijah, and the child came and took possession of his body again, and
the body revived.” This is the popular view. Mark the chasm between it
and the Scripture record.
Verse 17 tells what had left the child, and what it was therefore
necessary for the child to recover before he could live again. “His
sickness was so sore,” says the record, “that there was no _breath_ left
in him.” That was the trouble: the breath of life was gone from the
child. And when Elijah comes to pray for his restoration, he asks, in
the most natural manner possible, that the very thing that had left the
child, and thereby caused his death, might come into him again, and
cause him to live; and that was simply what verse 17 states, the breath
of life.
Thus in neither of these passages do we find any evidence of the
existence of an immaterial, immortal soul, which so confidently claims
the throne of honor in the temple of modern orthodoxy.