Automatic Transcript Generated:
Speaker 1
Next question.
Speaker 2
All right, so David is asking, does every living soul have vanity in their spirit?
Speaker 1
Now, this might seem like a really random question, and David, I’m glad you asked, and I’m so blessed that the first thing I did was actually pulled the Hebrew Bible bible and look up what vanity is in Hebrew. And that actually gave me the clue to this answer. I don’t know what prompted you to ask, but maybe this is the answer you’re looking for. So it’s really interesting. The word we translate into vanity in English in the Hebrew is HIBIL. And it literally means if you take it literally, it means breath or vapor. And it’s really interesting. I think it was last week we had a question where someone asked, why are all the Hebrew words seeming to be metaphorical? Almost, it really is the case. Almost every Hebrew word has like a really literal meaning, but usually when it’s used, it’s using metaphorical sense. And so while it means breadth of vapor, taken literally as a metaphor, it’s used to talk about things that are evanescent, like they’re temporary, they’re quickly fading or disappearing. And then that’s why it becomes in the stand in for vanity. These things are vain because they’re pointless. They’re here today, gone tomorrow sort of thing.
Speaker 1
So that’s where it comes in. And it’s related to the word habal. So hay bell is related to the word habal, which means excel. And then because you have excelled, you are now empty. So it’s a metaphor for emptiness or becoming vain. So vanity actually is a word that comes up a lot in the Book of Ecclesiastes. That’s something that’s always stood out to me in that book. So, for example, it says, I’ve seen all the work that are done under the sun, and indeed all is vanity and grasping for the wind. So it’s interesting. Here again, vanity and grasping at the wind. We see the two again used together, grasping for the wind. In Hebrew, this is ruha, ruhuth meaning longing, striving and ruoch, wind, spirit, breath. So it’s actually poetry. Ruhot, rua, rua. So striving for the wind. And as I just said, Ruak. I’m not saying it wrong, it actually doesn’t mean just wind. It usually also means like spirit or breath. So it has these meanings, spirit of breath. So often what you see in the Bible, translated spirit, is actually the same word, rua, which means wind or breath. It’s important to bear in mind then when we look at for example, let’s look at versus five to eight.
Speaker 1
To eight, it says, is for man goes to his eternal home and the mortars go about the streets. Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loose or the golden bowl is broken. There was a tradition to break like pottery when someone died, or the picture shattered at the fountain or the wheel broken at the will, then the dust will return to the earth. As it was. And the spirit, the ruoch, the breath will return to God who gave it. Vanity of vanities, says the preacher, all is vanity. So vanity, breath, spirit. And we’re seeing these all used together. And this is important because a lot of people trip up on this verse, and they think this verse is telling you that there is a spirit, and when you die, your spirit then floats up into heaven. Let’s go back. And the spirit, the ruaq, will return to God. So that means it came from God. And when did we get the rule from God? Remember in Book of Genesis, it says god breathed into Adam the breath of life. So that is where we got the breath, we got the spirit, we got the life in us.
Speaker 1
And when we die, the breath in a sense returns to God. In Leviticus 17, verse eleven, here’s more confirmation. So the question was maybe we could put up again. Does every living soul have vanity in the spirit? If we’re talking about vanity, literally means like vapor or breath. Check out this verse. Leviticus 17, verse eleven. God says, for the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls. So life is in the blood. The spirit is our breath. We know now from science, right, that when you breathe, the oxygen goes down into your lungs, and then from your lungs, it’s picked up into all your little red blood cells and then pick up and the oxygen clings to it, and then it takes it to the rest of your body. And the moment we don’t have oxygen, we’re dead. We replace oxygen with carbon monoxide or some other gas. Again, we’re dead. The life is not within us. The breath is not within us. The spirit departs. Just think of it. It says Jesus on his death. I don’t have the verse ready.
Speaker 1
When he died, he gave up the ghost. Or think others properly translate or he took his last breath. The breath is so important. It’s so connected to life. And it’s not just humans that are said to have this spirit within them. It really is used with regard to even any of the creatures. For example, Genesis 120, it says, God said, let the waters abound with abundance of and then this is my translation. I don’t like how everybody translates it. With the abundance of living, breathing creatures, there’s actually three words used. There where we translate just living creatures. There’s the word haji, meaning living. There’s the word nafesh, which is that we often translate soul, or that could be breathing, breath. And then there is the creatures, the sheriffs three words. So living, breathing creatures. Here we talk about the fish. And then it used again that same terminology for the land creatures. It’s emphasizing these creatures. They’re moving, they’re alive, and they have breath in them. We’re not much different than them. We all have the breath within us and further confirmation is amazing. If you look at John Three, we all know John 316, but Jesus is having the discussion with Nicodemus and he to describe the Holy Spirit, says he’s like the wind.
Speaker 1
So all these are very interrelated, even this concept of vanity, wind, spirit, breath. And when you really dig deep and understand the Hebrew Bible, all these concepts start coming together and you realize the Bible is telling you the same thing again and again in so many different ways. And it’s shame we lose that when we translate it to English. And it’s not the fault of any translator. But I hope this is encouragement for you to really just dig deep and find amazing treasures when you open up the Bible of with a deep study for yourself.
Speaker 2
Amen. Again.
Speaker 1
Ameen. Ameen.
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