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17. "Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord" (Psa. 150: 6).--In Psa. 148:
the heavens, angels, and all His hosts, sun, moon and stars, waters, dragons and all deeps,
cattle and creeping thing, as well as man, are all called upon to praise the Lord, but
"everything that hath breath" does not occur there. In Psa. 150:, however, man alone is in
view throughout, and we force the lower creation unwarrantably into this Psalm if we
make "everything that hath breath" go beyond its scriptural connotation.
18. "The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord" (Prov. 20: 27).
19. "Cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils" (Isa. 2: 22).
20. "The breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it" (Isa. 30: 33).
21. "He that giveth breath unto the people" (Isa. 42: 5).
22. "The spirit should fail before Me, and the souls that I have made" (Isa. 57: 16).
23. "Neither is there breath left in me" (Dan. 10: 17).
Here are 23 of the 24 occurrences of n'shamah. There are at least eight passages in
the above list where the n'shamah spoken of is God's. No. 1 may or may not refer to
God, but the parallel in No. 21 is highly suggestive. If we include this there are nine
occurrences which refer to God.
A reference to Nos. 11, 12, 14 and 22 shows a close connection between n'shamah
and ruach, spirit. This connection is important in more ways than one. It shews that the
word are not identical, and therefore it does not follow that all who have ruach must
necessarily have n'shamah. No. 16 uses the phrase "the n'shamah of the ruach", which
may prove of service later. Nos. 12 and 18 shew a close connection between n'shamah
and understanding and conscience--the latter so called because it is a "consciouness of
God".
As we allow these facts to weigh with us it becomes more difficult to believe that all
this distinctiveness is overset in Gen. 7: 21, 22. As the passage reads in the A.V. it
certainly does look as though "the breath of life" could be predicated of all, both man and
beast. Let us, however, search and see. Let us first of all compare the A.V. with the
R.V.:--
"And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast,
and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man. All in whose
nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died" (A.V.).
"And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both fowl, and cattle, and beast, and
every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: all in whose nostrils
was the breath of the spirit of life, of all that was in the dry land, died" (R.V.).
It will be noticed that whereas the A.V. has the word "of" before fowl, cattle, beast,
and creeping thing, the R.V. omits it. The A.V. is truer here, inasmuch as it seeks to give