A singular point in the statute regarding uncleanness "by the dead" is that the word נֶפֶשׁ (_nephesh_) stands apparently for the dead body. Of this some other explanation is needed than the free transference of meanings in Hebrew. Here and elsewhere in the Book of Numbers (vi. 11; ix. 6, 7, 10; xix. 13), as well as in various passages in Leviticus, defilement is attributed to the _nephesh_. Commonly the word means _soul_ or animal life-principle. When connected with death it corresponds to our word "ghost," as in Job xi. 20; Jer. xv. 9. Now the law was that not only those who touched a dead body, but all present in a house when death took place in it, were unclean. The question occurs whether the _nephesh_, or soul escaping at death, was believed to defile. As if in doubt here a rabbi said, "The body and the soul may plead successfully not guilty by charging their sinful life each upon the other. The body may say: 'Since that guilty soul parted with me, I have been lying in the grave as harmless as a stone.' The soul may plead: 'Since that depraved body separated from me, I flutter about in the air like an innocent bird.'" Is it not possible that the _nephesh_ meant the effluvium of the dead body, the active element which, springing from corruption, diffused uncleanness through the whole house of death? It seems quite in harmony with other uses of the word, and with the idea of defilement, to interpret "was unclean by the _nephesh_," "sinned by the _nephesh_," as technical expressions carrying this meaning. The passage Numb. xix. 13 is peculiarly instructive--אֲשֶׁר־יָמוּת הָאָדָם בְּנֶפֶשׁ בְּמֵת כָּל־הַנֹּגֵעַ--"Every one coming in contact with the dead, with the _nephesh_ of a man who has died." To translate, "with the corpse of a man who has died," would fix on the language the fault of tautology. In Psalm xvii. 9 _nephesh_ has the meaning of _deadly_, that is to say _breathing death_; and the idea here points to the meaning suggested.