Mind – Minish

Mind

mind (nous, dianoia, sunesis):

1. No Precision in the Terms Used:

We look in vain in the Old Testament and New Testament for anything like scientific precision in the employment of terms which are meant to indicate mental operations.

In the Old Testament lebh is made to stand for the various manifestations of our intellectual and emotional nature. We are often misled by the different renderings in the different versions, both early and late.

Sometimes nephesh or "soul" is rendered by "mind" (Deuteronomy 18:6 the King James Version, "desire of his soul" or "mind"); sometimes ruah or "spirit" (Genesis 26:35, "grief of mind," ruah). Here Luther renders the term Herzeleid ("grief of heart"), and the Vulgate (Jerome's Latin Bible, 390-405 A.D.) animum. Sometimes lebh is used, as in Isaiah 46:8, "bring it to mind" (literally, "heart"), or in Psalms 31:12, "I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind" (literally, "heart"), as in Septuagint, kardia, and in Vulgate, a corde, Luther, im Herzen, new Dutch translated, uit de gedachtenis (i.e. "memory").

In the Apocrypha this precision is equally lacking. Thus we read in The Wisdom of Solomon 9:15, "For the corruptible body (soma) presseth down the soul (psuche) and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind (nous) that museth upon many things." But these distinctions are alien to the letter and spirit of revelation, a product of the Greek and not of the Hebrew mind.

In the New Testament the words nous and dianoia are used, but not with any precision of meaning.

Here too several terms are rendered by the same word. Thus the Hebrew ruach is rendered by nous in 1 Corinthians 2:16 ("mind of the Lord," with reference to Isaiah 40:13, where "ruach YHWH (spirit of Yahweh)" occurs). Nous evidently means here the organ of spiritual perception--a word borrowed from the Septuagint, where it is sometimes made to stand for lebh (Job 7:17; Isaiah 41:22); sometimes for ruah (Isaiah 40:13). In Luke 24:45--the solitary text, where nous occurs in the Gospels--it is rendered "understanding" in the King James Version, "mind" in the Revised Version (British and American).

2. Ethical Sense:

For a true solution we must turn to the Epistles of Paul, where the word frequently occurs in an ethical sense--sometimes in connection with (sinful) flesh as in Colossians 2:18, "puffed up by his fleshly mind," sometimes in direct contrast to it, as in Romans 7:25, `with my mind I serve the law of God; with the flesh the law of sin.' In Titus 1:15 it is brought into parallelism with conscience ("Their mind and their conscience are defiled"). Phrases like "a reprobate mind," "corrupted in mind" occur elsewhere (Romans 1:28; 1 Timothy 6:5). From this state of "reprobation" and "corruption" man must be saved. Hence, the necessity of complete transformation and renewal of the inner man (Romans 12:2), "transformed by the renewing of your mind (nous)."

3. Dianoia and Nous:

Another word, with possibly a deeper meaning, is sometimes employed, namely, dianoia, which literally means "meditation," "reflection." It is found as synonymous with nous in a good sense, as e.g. in 1 John 5:20 (He "hath given us an understanding, that we know him that is true"). Evidently the sense here is the same as in Romans 12:2, a renovated mind capable of knowing Christ. It may also bear a bad sense, as in Ephesians 4:18, where the Gentiles are represented as having "a darkened understanding," or in parallelism with sarx: "the desires of the flesh and of the mind" (Ephesians 2:3), and with nous: `walking in vanity of mind (nous) and a darkened understanding (dianoia)' in Ephesians 4:18. At times also "heart" and "mind" are joined to indicate human depravity (Luke 1:51 "He hath scattered the proud in the imagination (dianoia) of their heart"). It is interesting also to know that the Great Commandment is rendered in Matthew 22:37--"Thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul (psuche), and with all thy understanding (dianoia) (English Versions of the Bible, "mind")"--though Mark has two renderings in one of which dianoia occurs, and in the other sunesis (Mark 12:30,33), though possibly without any psychological refinement of meaning, for the term sunesis occurs elsewhere in conjunction with pneumatikos ("spiritual understanding," Colossians 1:9). It also stands alone in the sense of an "understanding enlightened from above" (2 Timothy 2:7 King James Version: "The Lord give thee understanding (sunesis) in all things"). The history of these terms is interesting, but not of great theological significance.

4. The Great Commandment:

It seems to us that Godet's interpretation of the Great Commandment in Luke 10:27 is somewhat far-fetched. He considers the heart as "the central focus from which all rays of the moral life go forth, and that in their three principal directions: the powers of feeling, or the affections, nephesh (`soul') in the sense of feeling; the active powers, the impulsive aspirations, the might (`with all thy might'), the will; and in the intellectual powers, analytical or contemplative, dianoia (`with all thy mind'). The difference between the heart, which resembles the trunk and the three branches, feeling, will, understanding, is emphatically marked in the Alexandrian variation, by the substitution of the preposition en (`in') for ek (`with,' `from') in the three last members. Moral life proceeds from the heart and manifests itself without, in the three forms of activity. The impulse God-ward proceeds from the heart, and is realized in the life through the will, which consecrates itself actively to the accomplishment of His will; and through the mind, which pursues the track of His thought in all His works" (Godet, Commentary on the Gospel of Luke, II, 38, 39).

J. I. Marais

Mine; Mining

min, min'-ing: In Job 28:1–11 we have the only Biblical reference to mines. The writer very likely derived his information either from personal observation or from a description by an eyewitness, of the mining operations of Sinai (see METALS). No traces of ancient mines have yet been found in Palestine and Syria. What metals were taken out came from the superficial strata. The mines of Upper Egypt have already been mentioned. Burton and other travelers in Northern Arabia and the Red Sea country have found there evidences of ancient mining operations.

The usual Egyptian method of mining was to follow the vein from the surface as far as it was practicable with tools corresponding to our pick and hoe, hammer and chisel. The shafts frequently extended into the ground a distance of 180 to 200 ft. The rock when too hard to be dug out was first cracked by having fires built on it. The metal-bearing stone was carried in baskets to the surface, where the crushing and separating took place. The mining operations were performed by an army of slaves who were kept at their work day and night, driven with the lash until they died, when their places were taken by others.

See METALS; CRAFTS, II, 10.

James A. Patch

Minerals

min'-er-alz.

See METALS; STONES, PRECIOUS.

Mingled People; (Mixed Multitude)

min'-g'-ld pe'-pl:

(1) "Mixed multitude" occurs in Numbers 11:4 as a translation of asaphcuph, "collection," "rabble." The same phrase in Exodus 12:38; Nehemiah 13:3 is the rendition of erebh. "Mingled people" is used also to translate `erebh, and is found in Jeremiah 25:20,Jeremiah 25:24; Jeremiah 50:37; Ezekiel 30:5, and in 1 Kings 10:15 the Revised Version (British and American) (the King James Version "Arabia"; compare the American Revised Version margin). In the last case both revised versions have followed the pointing of the Massoretic Text, and this pointing alone distinguishes "mingled people" (`erebh) from "Arabia" (`arabh); in the unvocalized text both words are equally `-r-b. Now "the traffic of the merchants, and of all the kings of the mingled people, and of the governors of the country" is very awkward, and the correction into "Arabia," as in the Massoretic Text (and English Versions of the Bible) of the parallel 2 Chronicles 9:14, is indicated. Probably the same change should be made in Ezekiel 30:5, reading "Ethiopia, and Put, and Lud, and Arabia, and Cub." A similar textual confusion seems to be responsible for either "and all the kings of Arabia" or "and all the kings of the mingled people" in Jeremiah 25:24. On all these verses see the commentaries.

(2) In Jeremiah 25:20; Jeremiah 50:37, "mingled people" is a term of contempt for the hybrid blood of certain of Israel's enemies. Something of this same contempt may be contained in Exodus 12:38, where a multitude of non-Israelite camp-followers are mentioned as accompanying the children of Israel in the exodus, and in Numbers 11:4 it is this motley body that seduced Israel to sin. But who they were, why they wished or were permitted to join in the exodus, and what eventually became of them or of their descendants is a very perplexing puzzle. In Nehemiah 13:3, the "mixed multitude" consists of the inhabitants of Palestine whom the Jews found there after the return from the exile (see SAMARIA). In accord with the command of Deuteronomy 23:3–5, the Jews withdrew from all religious intercourse whatever had been established with these.

NOTE.--The Hebrew noun for "mingled people" may or may not be connected with the verb translated "mingle" in Ezra 9:2; Psalms 106:35; Daniel 2:43. On this see the lexicons.

Burton Scott Easton

Miniamin

min'-ya-min, mi-ni'-a-min (minydmin):

(1) A Levite who assisted Kore, the son of Imnah, in the distribution of the freewill offerings (2 Chronicles 31:15).

(2) A priestly family of the time of the high priest Joiakim (Nehemiah 12:17), probably equals MIJAMIN (2).

(3) A priestly participant in the ceremony of the dedication of the wall (Nehemiah 12:41).

Minish

min'-ash (the King James Version and the English Revised Version Exodus 15:19; Psalms 107:39; the English Revised Version Isaiah 19:6; Hosea 8:10): The verb "mannish," "make small," is now obsolete, being replaced by its derivative "diminish" (compare the American Standard Revised Version in all verses above).