Boyd’s Bible Dictionary:
The Hebrew ideal of man was threefold:
(1) The body, or material part. (2) The vital part, seat of sensations, passions. (3) The sentient, thinking, or spiritual part (Gen. 1:20; 2:7; Num. 16:22; 1 Thess. 5:23; Heb. 4:12).
Concise Bible Dictionary:
Man is composed of soul and body, though in certain cases the term “spirit” is added. Both soul and spirit are put in contrast to the body, as signifying the incorporeal part of man; but there is a distinction between soul and spirit. Soul is often employed to express the moral undying part of man’s being, and it is used sometimes to signify the person; as “all the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt” (Gen. 46:26); “eight souls” were saved in the ark (1 Pet. 3:20). “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezek. 18:4, 20).
The Hebrew word commonly translated “soul” is nephesh: in many instances this is translated “life” in the AV, as in Jonah 1:14: “Let us not perish for this man’s life,” or soul. In the New Testament the word ψυχή stands for both “life” and “soul:” “Whosoever will save his ‘life’ shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his ‘life’ for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own ‘soul’? or what shall a man give in exchange for his ‘soul’?” (Matt. 16:25-26).
The soul, as distinguished from the spirit, is the seat of appetites and desires. The rich man said, “I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry” (Luke 12:19). That night his “soul” was required of him. The salvation of the soul cannot be distinguished from the salvation of the person.
The SPIRIT is distinctively the higher part of man, it marks the conscious individuality, and distinguishes man thus from the inferior creation. God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life, and by this man was set in relation with God, and cannot be really happy separated from Him, either in present existence or eternally. The words are ruach and πνεῦμα, and are the same as constantly used for God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost, and for the angels as spirits, and for evil spirits.
The word of God is sharp, and able to divide asunder the soul and spirit of a man, though it may not be easy for the human mind to see the division. The apostle prayed for the Thessalonians that spirit (which is probably viewed as the seat of God’s work), as well as soul and body might be sanctified (1 Thess. 5:23). In the Epistle to the Hebrews we read of the “spirits” of just men made perfect: their place is with God through redemption. Here “spirits” apparently signifies the persons apart from their bodies.
The Holy Spirit being given to the Christian, as the spring in him of life in Christ, he is exhorted to pray with the spirit, sing with the spirit, walk in the Spirit, so that in some cases it is difficult to distinguish between the Spirit of God and the Christian’s spirit.
From Manners and Customs of the Bible:
John 11:17. Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already.
The three days after death were called “days of weeping,” which were followed by four “days of lamentation,” thus making up the seven “days of mourning.” See note on Genesis 27:41 (#47). According to the rabbinical notion the spirit wanders about the sepulcher for three days seeking an opportunity to return into the body; but when the aspect of the body changes it hovers no more, but leaves the body to itself. The friends of the deceased were in the habit of visiting the sepulcher for three days after death and burial, (see note on Acts 5:6, 826) probably because they supposed they would thus be nearer to the departed soul. When the fourth day came and decomposition took place, and the soul, as they supposed, went away from the sepulcher, they beat their breast and made loud lamentations. This explains the allusion to the “four days” in this text and in verse 39. To say that one had been in the grave four days was equivalent to saying that bodily corruption had begun.
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