Soul of Fire: A Theory of Biblical Man

By Ethan Dor-Shav

Our common fate as water, earth, wind, and fire.

Critically, the sun here not only embodies fire and light, which until as late as the eighteenth century were considered one and the same. The sun also conjures up the concept of heaven, as it was modeled in Genesis: “Let there be lights [Fire] in the firmament of the heaven.”¹⁹ Indeed, the heavens, or shamayim, may correspond to the very word for sun, shemesh.²⁰ Today we know that outer space is dark and frigid. But in biblical times, the heavens were considered solid, translucent, and fully radiant—a dome of solidified energy—home of the sun and the star-lights, and the source of lightning.²¹ In the biblical worldview, without a heaven above, the earth would be cold and dark.

Transcending its energetic attributes, the biblical vision of heaven also equates it with a metaphysical realm of Fire—as the high kingdom of serafim.²² Thus, in his grand description of God’s heavenly chariots, Ezekiel reports:

The likeness of the living creatures, their appearance like burning coals of fire, and like the appearance of torches… and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning....²³

Likewise, when ascending to this realm, Elijah’s horse and carriage were made of fire, and God’s fire repeatedly falls from heaven to devour sacrificial offerings, and the wicked. In one story, an angel of God transports himself to heaven through a rising flame, in front of Samson’s parents’ eyes. Many other examples—in the Bible as well as the Apocrypha—feature the fire-nature of heaven’s canopy and the heavenly kingdom. When our forefathers looked up into the sky, this is what they envisioned. Day or night, the sky-dome was ablaze.

Once we understand that the heavens, shamayim, are a literal embodiment of fire, the four elements emerge in many additional verses. Discussing man’s inferiority to God, for instance, Proverbs asks rhetorically:

Who has ascended into Heaven [Fire] and descended?

Who gathered the Wind in his fists?

Who bound the Water in a garment?

Who established all the ends of the earth? ²⁴

Likewise, in Psalm 18:

8. Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations of the hills also quaked and were shaken, because he was angry. [Earth]

9-10. Smoke went up from his nostrils, and devouring fire from his mouth; coals were kindled by it. He bowed the heavens coming down, arafel under his feet. [Fire/Heaven]

11. And he rode upon a cherub, and flew; he flew upon the wings of the wind. [Wind]

12. He made darkness his secret place; his dwelling the dark water, and rain-clouds of the skies. [Water]²⁵

These and other references show how early the four-element scheme was manifest in ancient Israelite writings.²⁶ Indeed, the very first two verses of the Bible invoke these same elements:

In the beginning God created the heaven [fire] and the earth.... And the wind of God hovered upon the face of the water.²⁷

This primordial blueprint can be discerned in the subsequent unfolding of creation, for the first six days comprise two sets of three, each opening with a distinct element. Days one and four both start with light, or fire. Days two and five are initiated by water. And days three and six both stem from the earth element. Thus, “in six days the Lord made heaven [fire] and earth, the sea, and all that is in them.”²⁸ Later we will learn why the Wind element may only reappear in the story of Adam and Eve.

From Genesis we also learn the biblical hierarchy, placing Water bottommost. This cosmic order is reiterated in the Ten Commandments, where it states: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above [fire], or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water underneath the earth.”²⁹

Here, then, are the biblical spheres of the cosmos: Fire, as heaven, is on top; then a circling wind; below it the green earth; and underneath the primal waters of the abyss, called tehom.³⁰

III

This view of the cosmos is essential to discovering the Hebrew Bible’s consistent concepts of the soul. The key is to realize that all biblical souls were not created equal. Rather, each Hebrew soul-term corresponds to one of the cosmic dominions, from which it was created and to which it gravitates at the moment of passing. Man’s link to the elements is as follows:

Body—Earth

Nefesh—Water

Ruah—Wind

Neshama—Fire

Not to be mistaken for material building blocks, as in the Aristotelian model,³¹ in the Bible each element represents a realm of being. Man, and only man, exists simultaneously in all four realms. For man, therefore, each elemental soul represents a different way of existing as an “I.” In understanding the three soul-terms distinctively, it becomes apparent that instead of an “immature” text, the Hebrew Bible proves to be philosophically acute, comprehensive, and revolutionary.

Let us take each element in turn. First, the material element, Earth. In the biblical worldview Earth represents man’s physical body, the base component of our existence (preceding the three soul-terms). On one level, the connection between Earth and body is straightforward. The “clay” body is formed “from the dust of the ground,” and upon death it returns to the ground, “For dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”³² The Bible combines two terms to define the body: basar, generally translated as “flesh,” and etzem, the bone frame.³³ Together they compose a twofold perception of the physique, characterized by the enduring skeleton and the soft-tissue husk that encases it.³⁴ Even independently basar and etzem are explicitly of Earth: Job teaches that “All flesh (basar) shall perish together, and man shall turn again unto ‘afar [Earth].”³⁵ And the Psalmist says, “My figure (atzmi) was not hidden from you, as I was formed in secret, constructed in the bottoms of the Earth.”³⁶ The great medieval linguist Abraham Ibn Ezra stresses that “bones, as the body’s foundation, are of the Earth and stand for Earth.”³⁷ Formed from the ground, etzem and basar are a compound manifestation of this element.

But on a deeper level we must note that the “dust” (an inadequate rendition of the Hebrew ‘afar) that we are created of is anything but listless. Rather, it represents dark soil taken from a verdant Earth. Indeed, the very root of ‘afar likely relates to fruit and reproduction.³⁸ At the very least, many verses show it to be moist and fertile, “and from another ‘afar they will grow.”³⁹ The word etzem—for bones—likewise connects to the idea of Earth as the source of organic growth, since etzem is related to etz, Hebrew for “tree.”⁴⁰ Inside each of us the Bible sees a growing tree—trunk and limbs—which gives form to our body.

Pointedly, plants, and not minerals, are the children of the biblical “Earth.” Here we discern a fundamental connection between the body and the sphere of earthen existence, as an autonomous layer of the cosmos. Earthen dominion is outlined by the third day of creation—before the introduction of animals—“Let the Earth sprout grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree yielding fruit after its kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the Earth.”⁴¹ By definition, then, Earth is the sphere of growth and procreation. Our bodies make us, too, children of Earth. It is the body that grows, that produces sperm, or ova, and thereby procreates. Being formed of soil does not debase us, therefore, but rather connects us to the entire botanic reality. Indeed, continuity of species (through “seeds,” an exclusive third-day theme) defines the very concept of organisms. Ultimately, then, the Earth element captures not inorganic matter, but the organic criterion—or what Aristotle would call our vegetative soul.⁴²

This explains the body-plant analogy employed throughout the Hebrew Bible. Particularly, the same word, zera, denotes both the seed of plants and the seed of man. Likewise, the word for fruit, pri, also describes children—“fruit of the loin”—and at least a half-dozen other terms employ this parallel usage.⁴³ Indeed, plant imagery is frequently employed to describe human physical existence, and continuity. Isaiah: “There shall come forth a shoot from the trunk of Yishai.”⁴⁴ Elsewhere in Isaiah: “Your bones shall flower like grass.”⁴⁵ Ezekiel: “I made you thrive like a plant in the field.”⁴⁶ Psalms: “The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree.”⁴⁷ More than merely poetic metaphors, these analogies point toward the core of the biblical worldview.

The body, therefore, is far more than a clay vessel. Man, in some sense, is first of all a plant. Itself growing, then wilting with age and eventually returning to the earth (only to fertilize new growth), the material body marks our being as an organism. On this level of existence, each and every one of us is a seed of Earth, like the flowers and the trees. And the elemental Earth principle, as a sphere of generation and degeneration, explains the puzzling link within the first verse of Ecclesiastes with which we opened: “A generation goes, and a generation comes,” because “the Earth stands forever.”⁴⁸ Our growing body, created of Earth, is our share in this basic, organic cycle of reality.