LIFE AND DEATH
The adjective ‘5 ‘living’ is used of God as the source of all life, as Jos 3" ‘the living God is among you’; and most commonly in the formula of the oath ‘as the Lord liveth,’ e.g. Ru 3%. Itis the ordinary word for ‘living’ of men or animals.
The word for ‘life’ most generally is a plural emphatic form (055) from the same root. This is used to denote not only physical life, but also welfare or happiness, as Pr 16% ‘in the light of the king’s countenance is life’; Dt 30” ‘to love the Lord thy God . . . for he is thy life and the length of thy days’; Ps 30 in his favour is life.’ Once (in late Hebrew) ir is used of eternal life, viz. Dn 12? ‘many shall awake, some to everlastin, life’ (ody vn). It bears also the signification οἱ means of life, sustenance, as in Pr 27* ‘ mainten- ance for thy maidens,’ though the general word in this latter sense is ΠῚ ΠΡ. There is also the form m5, which denotes ‘a living being,’ ‘an animal,’ and more particularly ‘ wild animals,’ but it is used στα ΦΉΙΣ in later poetical writings in the sense of ‘life,’ as Ps 143% ‘he hath smitten my life down to the ground’; Job 3318 ‘he keepeth back his life from perishing.’
It is noteworthy that the Hebrew name for § Bve’ (Ayn) is beaten in Gn 3” to this root, though it has been otherwise interpreted (see EVE). Ἷ
A very important word is v=, lit. ‘breath,’ sig- nifying the soul as the principle of life. We find it in its literal sense in such passages as Job 41% {Eng.“4] ‘his breath kindleth coals,’ and Is 3”. As life, its seat was supposed to be in the blood, οἴ. Ly 178 ‘For the life of the flesh is in the blood.’ It is a general term for /ife in many senses, as 1 K 2% ‘at the peril of his life’; Pr 103 one’s life ‘hungers.’ A special combination is 777 &53 ‘ living creatures,’ as in Gn 1* etc.; so it is used by synec- doche for a ‘man,’ as Ly 5? ete. ‘if any man sin’; Gn 4618 ‘even sixteen souls, 7.e. persons’ (cf. corre- sponding Eng. usage), and even for the emphatic personal pronoun, as Is 46%‘ themselves are gone into captivity’; Ps 11} ‘why say ye to me?’ Curiously it is sometimes=‘ a dead body,’ ef. Nu δ". 335 ‘the heart’ is occasionally used as=w5}, see Ps 1024, Jer 418, See, further, art. SOUL.
In the LXX the usual equivalent of op is ζωή, though once (Pr 31) βίος is used, and the latter frequently has the signification of the period or course of life in the NT, e.g. Lk 815 ‘ pleasures of this life’ ; as also of resources, as Mk 12“ ‘even all her living.’ The special NT ideas covered by for are discussed below. For w>3and also 32, ψυχή 1s the equivalent ; and this word also plays an im ortant Back in the language of the ΝΣ, as also does its
erived adj. ψυχικός. Hine
(2) The most ordinary Hebrew verb signifying ‘to die’ is nip, and this 1s used in the most genera sense of man, beast, and even of trees and land. Cf. Job 148 ‘the stock thereof die in the ground,’ and Gn 4719 ‘ wherefore should we die, both we and our land?’ From this is derived the word mp ‘death,’ sometimes personified, as in Ps 494 * Death shall be their shepherd’; cf. Is 3818, It is used as=the abode of the dead, as in Ps 913 ‘ the gates of death,’ and Pr 7” ‘the chambers of death’ (though these might be understood in the former sense as a
erson). There is the derived form ama, only ound in the phrase “nj2, as Ps 79" ‘the sons of death ’=‘ those that are appointed to death’ (EV). (For Sheol and Abaddon, see arts. on these words, and also ESCHATOLOGY OF THE OT in vol. i. p. 740). For death in the special aspect of a destructive plague on men, as Ex 5% ‘lest he fall upon us with pestilence,’ or on cattle Ex 98, there is the word 732 (LXX @dvaros).
The most general word in the LXX as equivalent to the Hebrew terms above noted is θάνατος. In the NT it is used in the same signification, and is
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also found personified, as in 1 Co 15° ‘O death, where is thy victory ?’ Rev 18 ‘I have the keys of death and of Hades.’ It is Senently, used of spiritual death, either during earthly life, as in Ro 78 * Did then that which is good become death unto me?’ 1 Jn 34 ‘ He that loveth not abideth in death,’ or in the world to come, as specially ‘ the second death’ (ὁ δεύτερος θάνατος), as Rev 2" ‘he shall not be hurt of the second death.’
For ἄδης see art. HADES, sub voc., and also EscCHATOLOGY OF THE NT in vol. i. p. 752.
ii. EXAMINATION OF THE BIBLICAL TEACHING ON THESE IpEAS.—A. OLD TESTAMENT TEACHING.— 41) In the Early Narratives of Genesis.—At the very opening of Scripture, in both accounts of the Creation, we find definite teaching on life and death. God created every living creature. Gn 1° ‘And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life.” Again we read in Gn 180 of ‘every beast of the earth, and every fowl of the air, and everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life.’ The second account is more definite in its teaching as to the creation of man; thus Gn 2? describes how ‘the Lorp God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; and man became a living soul.’ Next we read of the ‘ tree of life,’ which is common to the traditions of other Semitic peoples, and of the punishment attached to the eating of the ‘tree of the know- ledge of good and evil’; Gn 217 ‘in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.” The literal and metaphorical senses of the word ‘die’ constitute the force and subtlety of the serpent’s temptation in Gn 34‘ Ye shall not surely die.’ To