The Hebrew word _ruah_ is translated
in the Old Testament sometimes by wind, sometimes by spirit, sometimes
by breath. Etymologically, in fact, ghosts and gusts, breaths and
breezes, the Great Spirit and the Great Wind, are one and the same. It
is easy to guess the reason of this. The soul is the life, the life is
the breath. Invisible, imponderable, quickening with vigorous motion,
slackening in rest and sleep, passing quite away in death, it is the
most obvious sign of life. All nations grasped the analogy and
identified the one with the other. But the breath is nothing but wind.
How easy, therefore, to look upon the wind that moves up and down and to
and fro upon the earth, that carries the clouds, itself unseen, that
calls forth the terrible tempests and the various seasons, as the
breath, the spirit of God, as God himself? So in the Mosaic record of
creation, it is said "a mighty wind" passed over the formless sea and
brought forth the world, and when the Almighty gave to the clay a living
soul, he is said to have breathed into it "the wind of lives.
Pages:
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97