Thread: Holy Spirit feminine or masculine

Originally Posted by Colonel

I haven't read the entire thread but where is the Spirit refered to as feminine ?

Strong's H7306

But here is an excerpt and link I found addresses this in far more detail.

I was teaching advanced Hebrew, and I had decided to take the class through the book of Judges. As we read along, I noticed something odd about Judges 3:10:

The Spirit of Yahweh came upon Caleb's younger brother...

In English, this passage from Judges doesn't appear startling, but in Hebrew something strange leapt out at me: "came upon" was a third person FEMININE verb, indicating it's subject "Spirit" was being understood as a feminine noun. Hebrew is not like Aramaic in its use of the word "spirit". While the word is exclusively feminine in Aramaic, in Hebrew it is sometimes masculine. Therefore, the question that came to mind was why had the author of Judges chosen here to make the Spirit of Yahweh feminine, when he could just as easily have made it masculine? Oh well.

I just shrugged my shoulders and went on, not overly concerned. Occasionally, I thought, one finds something inexplicable in the Bible: no big deal. But then came Judges 6:34. Again, "Spirit of Yahweh" was feminine.

At this point I decided to consult the concordance. Much to my surprise, every occurrence of "Spirit of Yahweh" in Judges is feminine. As I pondered that, I recalled Genesis 1:2, the first occurrence of "Spirit of God" in the Bible, and realized to my shock that it too is feminine.

Back to the concordance. Out of 84 OT uses of the word "spirit", in contexts traditionally assumed to be references to the Holy Spirit, 75 times it is either explicitly feminine or indeterminable (due to lack of a verb or adjective). Only nine times can "spirit" be construed as masculine, and in those cases it is unclear that it is a reference to God's Holy Spirit anyway. (Please see Appendix 3 for a complete list and detailed discussion of the usages.)

The New Testament references to the Holy Spirit are not helpful for conclusively deciding on the gender of the Holy Spirit, since "spirit" in Greek is neuter, and so is referred to as "it" by the New Testament writers.

The conclusion of all this is that our traditional assumption of a masculine Spirit is questionable; in fact, the evidence seems overwhelming that the Spirit should be viewed as "She", which does seem to make sense, since the other two members of the Godhead are labeled "Father" and "Son".
http://www.theology.edu/journal/volume3/spirit.htm

If you decide to give this more study I would like to know what you conclude and why...

Originally Posted by Quest

Strong's H7306

But here is an excerpt and link I found addresses this in far more detail.



If you decide to give this more study I would like to know what you conclude and why...

That excerpt is interesting but the Holy Spirit isn't revealed as a person in the OT so the gender of the word doesn't tell us that much. I think the NT's use of the neutral gender makes sense. I find it useful to think of the Holy Spirit as genderless as ascribing gender to him may lead people to develop a sexualized relation to him. He reveals the Father and the Son but that is different to their being tangibly present with (and even inside) the believer.

The wisdom mentioned in Proverbs 8-9 is described in terms that suggest that it is a picture of Jesus rather than the Holy Spirit. Did Jesus preexist as a male before his incarnation ? Quite possibly not. He continues to be a male human being in heaven though (in addition to being God).

The gender involved with the wisdom is very concrete though, since the whole description revolves around a woman tending to various tasks in Jewish society of that time.

Originally Posted by Quest

If HS is has personhood now would he not have had personhood then?

In your examples he could be nothing more than a force, power, entity.

If you can find somewhere in the OT where the Holy Spirit is mentioned as counselor, helper etc then that should imply personality. Then I would like to know the gender involved in those mentions.

Originally Posted by Colonel

In your examples he could be nothing more than a force, power, entity.

If you can find somewhere in the OT where the Holy Spirit is mentioned as counselor, helper etc then that should imply personality. Then I would like to know the gender involved in those mentions.

Sorry Colonel that makes no sense to me....that statement implies he was not a person and then became one...


You gave your good Spirit to instruct them. You did not withhold your manna from their mouths, and you gave them water for their thirst Nehemiah 9:20

Instructor...one of many that express the activity of the Holy Spirit in the OT...

The gender in that verse ?

Originally Posted by Colonel

The gender in that verse ?

feminine noun

So what you are saying is that God sent his Spirit so that she could instruct them ?

Originally Posted by Colonel

So what you are saying is that God sent his Spirit so that she could instruct them ?

Technically..yes..but I am not saying it...the scriptures are...but this is not a problem if we wrap our mind around the fact that God has no human gender but male voice and the female voice...

The only person of the trinity that has an actual GENDER is Jesus..

I'm not so sure the Holy Spirit is feminine just because of that verse and the passage from proverbs about wisdom. The NT says that he is the spirit of the Father and of Jesus and they are both masculine. Can you find any verse in the NT where he is connected to anything feminine ?

Originally Posted by Quest

Masculine...not male...seems male is human specific where as masculine is not...we would not call a woman with masculine tendencies a male..

Thinking out loud...personality:the combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual's distinctive character:

What would you say is distinct then between the masculine personality of the Father and the feminine personality of the Holy Spirit?

According to you the OT uses both masculine, neutral and feminine about God's spirit and the NT calls him the spirit of Jesus and the Father so there is no way he can be defined as feminine. Possibly as hermaphrodite but then I'd suggest that genderless is a much better approach. We don't have an either male, female or hermaphrodite spirit from God living inside of us, sorry.

Originally Posted by Quest

Now back to the book....since our Father is masculine but not male it seems reasonable to me that the author had sufficient license to be creative...but now some have problem....it is verified the Hebrew language gave Holy Spirit a feminine noun....will you remain comfortable in calling her a him? And does that seem right to say we can call her a him and not call him a her? SARCASM...just saying that if we want to be theologically correct we should adjust for accuracy...uncomfortable with that? Please don't stone me...

I did send Tom a message asking him for his input on the feminine noun in the OT and the neutral noun in the NT...