Word studies · Greek · Strong's G5590
ψυχή · psychḗ · appears 106 times in the New Testament
In one line: Your life and self, whole and breathing.
What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?
Mark 8:36
Psychē is the living self — a person's life and inner being, not a ghost housed in a body.
The New Testament uses psychē for the life a person can lose or save, for the self that loves and longs, and for the whole person counted among the living — Acts can say three thousand “souls” were added. Jesus' hardest sayings turn on it: whoever would save his psychē will lose it.
Psychē comes from psychō, “to breathe” or “to blow cool,” and the Septuagint used it for Hebrew nephesh, which starts from throat and breath and comes to mean a whole breathing creature. Both languages build the word for the self out of the fact that living things breathe.
Greek philosophy could treat the soul as the immortal part temporarily trapped in a body; the Bible's usage is more earthy — the psychē is you, alive. That is why the same word is translated “life” in one verse and “soul” in the next, and why Christian hope is resurrection of the body rather than escape from it.
Psychē (G5590) appears 106 times in the New Testament and gives English “psyche” and “psychology.”
Because the soul is the self rather than a detachable part, salvation concerns the whole person and Jesus can weigh it against everything else: “what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” Loving God “with all your soul” is likewise not one compartment of devotion but all of you.
Ask what you are currently spending your life on — that is what the word actually means. Name one thing you would not trade your self for, and check whether your week agrees.
breath, i.e. (by implication) spirit, abstractly or concretely (the animal sentient principle only; thus distinguished on the one hand from G4151 (πνεῦμα), which is the rational and immortal soul; and on the other from G2222 (ζωή), which is mere vitality, even of plants: these terms thus exactly correspond respectively to the Hebrew H05315, H07307 and H02416)
“Get up! he said. “Take the Child and His mother and go to the land of Israel, for those seeking the Child’s life are now dead.
Matthew 2:20And He asked them, “Which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it? But they were silent.
Mark 3:4Then Mary said: “My soul magnifies the Lord,
Luke 1:46I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.
John 10:11because You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor will You let Your Holy One see decay.
Acts 2:27There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil, first for the Jew, then for the Greek;
Romans 2:9Press and hold soul in any chapter and this study opens on the verse you are reading, with the lexicons, every occurrence and the commentaries beside it. The Bible is free to read.
Scripture quoted from the Berean Standard Bible, public domain. Strong's definitions are public domain. Counts come from The Pillar's own tagged text.