same purpose Job 144 (‘How could a clean come from an unclean? Not one.’) 154 254*—late pas- sages, but manifestly intending to express nothing more than is meant already by J in Gn 871.
In the last-cited passages from Job the ques- tion is put, ‘How can one born of woman be pure [before God]?’: this shows how the connexion between descent and sinfulness was more_pre- cisely thought of. The latter as moral weakness is the natural result of the physical weakness of the body. Man is in the narrower sense the off- spring of woman, the weaker vessel and the one more exposed to physical hardships. From her, man inherits moral as well as physical (Job 14') weakness.
(e) In view of all this, it might have seemed natural that the material substratum of human personality, the flesh or the body [the Heb. wa may stand for either], should be regarded as the seat of sin, just as the NT cdpé undeniably has this collateral notion attached to it. But, in spite of appearances such as arise from Gn 6°, it is wrong to conclude that such a view was held. It is true that the flesh or the body, in consequence of its origin from the earth, is a type of the decaying and transitory (cf. the characteristic contrast in Is 313 ‘Their [the Egyptians’] horses are flesh, and not spirit’), and this thought attaches itself almost always to the very frequent expression ‘all flesh’ (2.e. either all men or all earthly living creatures). But the truth that the flesh, although an occasion also of moral weakness, is not thought of as per se sinful and therefore unclean, is unmis- takably implied in the circumstance that in sacri- fice it was used as a gift to God, and such a gift could never have been in itself wnclean.
(f) The habit already mentioned of putting upon the OT a trichotomous view of human per- sonality was due almost entirely to a false con- ception of the nephesh (v5; commonly tr. ‘soul’), and of its relation to the réah (4 commonly tr. ‘spirit’). This distinction between soul and spirit naturally caused the actually existing dichotomy of body (or flesh) and spirit of life to be missed. The real state of things is as follows. As long as the Divine breath of life is outside man, it can never be called nephesh but only rviah (more completely riah hayyim, t.e. ‘spirit or breath of life,’ in which sense we find also nishmath hayyim used [e.g. Gn 27]). On the other hand, the breath of life which has entered man’s body and manifests its presence there may be called either rvah or nephesh. The two alternate in poetical parallelism in such a way that the same functions are attributed at one time to the nephesh and at another to the réiah. This, indeed, has not prevented its coming about that in certain expressions usage has established only one of the terms, or has at least secured a preference for it. Further, it may be noted that both very frequently stand in parallelism with 25 (< heart,’ ‘disposition,’ also ‘understanding o7 insight,’ the heart and not the head being with the Hebrews the seat of intellect), But in no case should that use of nephesh, whereby it stands for particular functions of the soul or even for a complex of these, be confused with its signification of ‘person or living being’ (and even ‘corpse’; cf. above, p. 665" n.). In this latter sense nephesh could never have its place taken by réah or lebh.
The religious significance of the anthropological views represented by the above-described dich- otomy is at once apparent. Everything which in any way can be recognized as spirit and life is brought into direct relation to God, and has its origin in Him, and Him alone. The Pauline
saying, ‘In him we live, and move, and have our being’ (Ac 17°8), corresponds exactly to the postu- lates of OT psychology.
The latter proceeds so
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consistently in its derivation of al/ human thought and will and action, that it speaks not only of a ‘ spirit,’ (ruiah, i.e. in this instance the same as ‘ principle,’ ‘disposition,’ or even ‘capability for’) of wisdom, knowledge, and fear of God (Is 11°), or of skill in art and expertness (Ex 28%), but even of a spirit of jealousy (Nu 514), of dizziness (Is 19"), of deep sleep (29'°), ete. Moreover, this spirit is yaad (so in the two passages from Isaiah) spoken of as directly sent by Jahweh. He causes an ‘evil spirit,’ i.¢. a spirit of discord, to come be- tween Abimelech and the Shechemites (Jg 9), and in like manner lets an ‘evil spirit,’ ¢.e. a spirit of melancholy or of insanity, take possession of Saul after the departure of the spirit of Jahweh (18 1644).* In this theorem of the universal activity of the spirit, and indeed of the spirit emanating directly from God, we have one of the strongest evidences of the living character and dignity of the ancient Israelitish conception of God. The latter did not take its rise as a result of the preaching of the prophets. The prophets, on the contrary, found it ready to their hand, made large use of it, and, wherever necessary, deepened it and cleared it of excrescences.