Genesi 41:4
To many Protestant and Evangelical Italians, the Bibles translated by Giovanni Diodati are an important part of their history. Diodati’s first Italian Bible edition was printed in 1607, and his second in 1641. He died in 1649. Throughout the 1800s two editions of Diodati’s text were printed by the British Foreign Bible Society. This is the more recent 1894 edition, translated by Claudiana.
True Christian Religion # 156
156. (vi) A PERSON'S SPIRIT IS HIS MIND, AND WHATEVER COMES FROM IT.
A person's spirit, regarded as an object, is nothing but his mind. It is this which lives on after death, and it is then called a spirit; if he is good, an angelic spirit and later an angel, if wicked, a satanic spirit and afterwards a Satan. Everyone's mind is his internal man, which is the real person and resides within the external man composed of his body. So when the body is cast off as the result of death, the internal man has a fully human form. Those, then, are in error who believe that a person's mind resides only in his head. There it is only in its beginnings, from which first emerge everything a person's understanding allows him to think and his will induces him to do. But in the body the mind is present in derivatives from those beginnings, and these have been so constructed as to permit sensation and action. Since it is inwardly attached to the bodily structures, it imparts to them sensation and movement, together with a feeling that the body thinks and acts of itself. Yet every intelligent person knows that this is a fallacy. Now since a person's spirit is allowed by his understanding to think and is induced by his will to act, and the body does not do so of itself but from the spirit, it follows that a person's spirit means his intelligence and the affection of his love, and everything which comes from it and acts.
[2] There are numerous passages in the Word to prove that a person's spirit means such things as are to do with the mind; their mere quotation will show anyone that this is so. The following are a few among many:
Bezaleel was filled with the spirit of wisdom, intelligence and knowledge, Exodus 31:3.
Nebuchadnezzar said of Daniel that an outstanding spirit of knowledge, intelligence and wisdom was in him, Daniel 5:12, 14.
Joshua was filled with the spirit of wisdom, Deuteronomy 34:9.
Make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit, Ezekiel 18:31.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for of such is the kingdom of the heavens, Matthew 5:3.
I dwell in a broken and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, Isaiah 57:15.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, Psalms 51:17.
I will give a cloak of praise in place of a depressed spirit, Isaiah 61:3.
Spirit also stands for the products of a wrong and unjust mind, as these passages prove:
He said to the foolish prophets, who run after their own spirit, Ezekiel 13:3.
Conceive chaff, bring forth stubble; as to your spirit, fire shall devour you, Isaiah 33:11.
A man who is in spirit a vagabond and utters a lie, Micah 2:11.
A generation whose spirit is not steadfast with God, Psalms 78:8.
A spirit of whoring, Hosea 4:12; 5:4.
That every heart may melt and every spirit be depressed, Ezekiel 21:7.
That which rises upon your spirit shall never be, Ezekiel 20:32.
Provided there is no deceit in his spirit, Psalms 32:2.
The spirit of Pharaoh was troubled, Genesis 41:8.
Likewise that of Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel 2:3.
These and very many other passages plainly establish that spirit means a person's mind and what is to do with it.
Psalms 78
1
Hear my teaching, my people. Turn your ears to the words of my mouth.
2
I will open my mouth in a parable. I will utter dark sayings of old,
3
Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.
4
We will not hide them from their children, telling to the generation to come the praises of Yahweh, his strength, and his wondrous works that he has done.
5
For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a teaching in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children;
6
that the generation to come might know, even the children who should be born; who should arise and tell their children,
7
that they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments,
8
and might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that didn't make their hearts loyal, whose spirit was not steadfast with God.
9
The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle.
10
They didn't keep God's covenant, and refused to walk in his law.
11
They forgot his doings, his wondrous works that he had shown them.
12
He did marvelous things in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan.
13
He split the sea, and caused them to pass through. He made the waters stand as a heap.
14
In the daytime he also led them with a cloud, and all night with a light of fire.
15
He split rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink abundantly as out of the depths.
16
He brought streams also out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers.
17
Yet they still went on to sin against him, to rebel against the Most High in the desert.
18
They tempted God in their heart by asking food according to their desire.
19
Yes, they spoke against God. They said, "Can God prepare a table in the wilderness?
20
Behold, he struck the rock, so that waters gushed out, and streams overflowed. Can he give bread also? Will he provide flesh for his people?"
21
Therefore Yahweh heard, and was angry. A fire was kindled against Jacob, anger also went up against Israel,
22
because they didn't believe in God, and didn't trust in his salvation.
23
Yet he commanded the skies above, and opened the doors of heaven.
24
He rained down manna on them to eat, and gave them food from the sky.
25
Man ate the bread of angels. He sent them food to the full.
26
He caused the east wind to blow in the sky. By his power he guided the south wind.
27
He rained also flesh on them as the dust; winged birds as the sand of the seas.
28
He let them fall in the midst of their camp, around their habitations.
29
So they ate, and were well filled. He gave them their own desire.
30
They didn't turn from their cravings. Their food was yet in their mouths,
31
when the anger of God went up against them, killed some of the fattest of them, and struck down the young men of Israel.
32
For all this they still sinned, and didn't believe in his wondrous works.
33
Therefore he consumed their days in vanity, and their years in terror.
34
When he killed them, then they inquired after him. They returned and sought God earnestly.
35
They remembered that God was their rock, the Most High God, their redeemer.
36
But they flattered him with their mouth, and lied to him with their tongue.
37
For their heart was not right with him, neither were they faithful in his covenant.
38
But he, being merciful, forgave iniquity, and didn't destroy them. Yes, many times he turned his anger away, and didn't stir up all his wrath.
39
He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes away, and doesn't come again.
40
How often they rebelled against him in the wilderness, and grieved him in the desert!
41
They turned again and tempted God, and provoked the Holy One of Israel.
42
They didn't remember his hand, nor the day when he redeemed them from the adversary;
43
how he set his signs in Egypt, his wonders in the field of Zoan,
44
he turned their rivers into blood, and their streams, so that they could not drink.
45
He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them; and frogs, which destroyed them.
46
He gave also their increase to the caterpillar, and their labor to the locust.
47
He destroyed their vines with hail, their sycamore fig trees with frost.
48
He gave over their livestock also to the hail, and their flocks to hot thunderbolts.
49
He threw on them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, indignation, and trouble, and a band of angels of evil.
50
He made a path for his anger. He didn't spare their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence,
51
and struck all the firstborn in Egypt, the chief of their strength in the tents of Ham.
52
But he led forth his own people like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock.
53
He led them safely, so that they weren't afraid, but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
54
He brought them to the border of his sanctuary, to this mountain, which his right hand had taken.
55
He also drove out the nations before them, allotted them for an inheritance by line, and made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents.
56
Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God, and didn't keep his testimonies;
57
but turned back, and dealt treacherously like their fathers. They were turned aside like a deceitful bow.
58
For they provoked him to anger with their high places, and moved him to jealousy with their engraved images.
59
When God heard this, he was angry, and greatly abhorred Israel;
60
So that he forsook the tent of Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men;
61
and delivered his strength into captivity, his glory into the adversary's hand.
62
He also gave his people over to the sword, and was angry with his inheritance.
63
Fire devoured their young men. Their virgins had no wedding song.
64
Their priests fell by the sword, and their widows couldn't weep.
65
Then the Lord awakened as one out of sleep, like a mighty man who shouts by reason of wine.
66
He struck his adversaries backward. He put them to a perpetual reproach.
67
Moreover he rejected the tent of Joseph, and didn't choose the tribe of Ephraim,
68
But chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which he loved.
69
He built his sanctuary like the heights, like the earth which he has established forever.
70
He also chose David his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds;
71
from following the ewes that have their young, he brought him to be the shepherd of Jacob, his people, and Israel, his inheritance.
72
So he was their shepherd according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them by the skillfulness of his hands. A Psalm by Asaph.
