The animals feel pain. They have emotions. They think, they trust, they reason. They love unconditionally, yet we torture them, kill them and butcher them without remorse.

My puppies love me more than any church member or pastor ever has or ever will. They are an example of His love. There is no doubt in my heart that if man has a soul, then so do the animals that He breathed life into. The same Hebrew word, Ruach, that he breathed into man, is used when he breathed life into the animals. It means, wind, breath, mind, spirit.

The Ruach Elohim, the Creator, imparted life in the same measure unto man and animal. In Genesis 1:20-21, nephesh chayyah is translated living creatures when referring to the animals. In Genesis 2:7, the same nephesh chayyah is translated living soul when referring to Adam. He became a nephesh chayyah. The same phrase is used i8n the scriptures to describe sea creatures. To eat an animal, there is death, a sacrifice of nephesh, a termination of ruach. How wrong is that? Plants do not have nephesh, or consciousness, and so to eat a vegetable does not involve death in a scriptural sense. Plants do not die, as in mȗt. They yabesh. They dry up. They wither.

There was no death or suffering of animals before the fall. Man and beast were vegetarians.

Genesis 1:29-30
29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food.
30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for food: and it was so.

Ecclesiastes 3:19
Man's fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath (nephesh); man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless.

Man was created in the likeness of Yahweh, so we know that He is not lion or dog or squirrel. We and the animals (both nephesh chayyah) differ from the plants and creeping things (remes)

Now, here is something to think about. We have been taught that Adam named the nephesh chayyah in the garden. He named each living creature. Did he identify them as cow, tiger, bird, etc., or did he give each of them names as we do our pets today? They were his companions. Adam did not name the remes, or creeping things, for they are not nephesh.

Go ye into all the world, preaching the good news to every living creature.
Have you ever considered what that really means?

Earlier, I said if a man has a soul... Here is what I meant by that. The word, nephesh is translated soul 240 times in the scriptures. It is the same word used for animals, yet the translators use a myriad of other different words.
"Let the waters team with swarms of living creatures (nephesh) and let the birds fly above the earth..."
"Let the earth bring forth living creatures (nephesh) after their kind..."
"Rachael began to give birth and she suffered severe labor. And it came about as her soul (nephesh) was departing..."
"Now it came about when he had finished speaking to Saul, that the soul (nephesh) of Jonathan was knit to the soul (nephesh) of David and Jonathan loved him as himself."

Does man have a soul? He is nephesh chayyah. Do animals have a soul? They are nephesh chayyah.

I have witnessed atrocities done to animals, methods of slaughter and preparation for food that I believe are sin. If these acts are indeed sin, I am guilty if I allow others to commit them on my behalf in the name of food.


- Rod
always learning

• Topic: Bible Study

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