It’s your breath

There’s this popular church song by All Sons & Daughters that got me super excited the first time I heard it. I thought it might connect to the issue I mentioned in Malachi – that we’re related to God by his spirit/breath within us, even before Pentecost. The reason this puzzles me, is that I think the purpose of a good part of the Bible and the very and resurrection of Christ is bringing the Presence of God to live in the midst of his people. Does God’s breath/spirit animate life, and his Presence live with his people? The song starts with:

You give life, You are love
You bring light to the darkness
You give hope, You restore every broken heart
And great are You, Lord
It’s Your breath in our lungs
So we pour out our praise, we pour out our praise
It’s Your breath in our lungs

Honestly, I was a bit disappointed because it didn’t explain why God’s breath in our lungs is so important. It just jumped to “therefore” (we praise Him). The song is probably thinking about God’s people as new creations with the spirit breathed into them (Ezekiel 37, John 20:22, etc.). These passages are definitely relevant, but we’ll get to them later.

The song does point to where I want to start exploring. Giving life, light to the darkness, and breath in our lungs all remind me of the creation story in Genesis 1–2.¹

Then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being" Genesis 2:7²

This verse doesn’t explicitly say that God’s breath is the “Spirit of God,” but it’s definitely life that God breathes into the man’s nose. I picture God (in human form) breathing out, and His breath going into the dirt-figure’s nose. So, there’s something from God that makes things alive.

Later in Genesis 6:3, God says

“My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred twenty years.” Genesis 6:3

Okay, this one’s confusing. The word translated as “abide” is only used this one time in the Old Testament, so we don’t really know what it means. Translators have made guesses based on the context and connected it to God breathing life into man. God’s spirit/breath³ can’t stay in humans⁴ forever, and this is contrasted with them being flesh.⁵ So, people will start dying earlier than they had been (which gradually happens throughout Genesis).

Then in Genesis 6:17, it says
“For my part, I am going to bring a flood of waters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the [spirit] of life; everything that is on the earth shall die.” Genesis 6:17

This uses the same word translated as “spirit” above (which could also just mean “breath”), but here, God says ALL flesh has the spirit/breath of life, which is linked to God’s breath. Compare this with Genesis 7:21–22:
And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, domestic animals, wild animals, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all human beings; everything on dry land in whose nostrils was the breath [of the spirit] of life died. Genesis 7:21–22

Here, animals are also called “flesh,” and this flesh had the breath-of-the-spirit-of-life in their nose – at least until they died.

So, for now, based on all this, I’m thinking that God’s breath is in humans and all of creation – and they’re made of flesh. And based on the context, when creatures die, God’s breath, which is life, is no longer in them. (Duh, right?!) But seriously, if things get their life from the breath/spirit that God blew into them, I feel like this has some major implications – don’t you?

Before we jump to any conclusions,⁶ there’s one more thing I want to add to this puzzle, which means looking at the flood story alongside the creation story. Trust me, this will be even more interesting!

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1. Because, the depictions of man as a “new creation” of course draw on the original creation.  ↩︎

2. This verse has quite a few difficult words to translate - what exactly is the referent of each word? I’ll look at that more in the future.  ↩︎

3. The word for “spirit” can also just mean “breath.”  ↩︎

4. “Human” and “Adam” are the same words - making a closer connection of this passage with the Genesis 2:7 passage.  ↩︎

5. My mind immediately goes to the book of Romans here - what about you? Let’s explore that in the future!  ↩︎

6. If you preach, this would be called the “application” ;)  ↩︎