Aligned sentence by sentence
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Part One · Chapter Forty — Ruach: Wind, Breath, Spirit, and the Divine Overflow
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Ruach is an equivocal term. It is the name for air — I mean the element, one of the four elements: 'and the spirit of God hovered' (Gen 1:2).
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And it is also the name for wind as it blows: 'the east wind carried the locusts' (Ex 10:13); 'the sea wind' (Ex 10:19) — and this is frequent.
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And it is also the name for the animal spirit: 'a breath that goes and does not return' (Ps 78:39); 'in which was the breath of life' (Gen 7:15).
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And it is also the name for that which remains of the human being after death, which is not subject to corruption: 'and the spirit returns to God who gave it' (Eccl 12:7).
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And it is also the name for the divine intellectual overflow that overflows upon the prophets, and by which they prophesy — as I shall explain to you when I speak of prophecy, with what befits mention in this part: 'I will take of the spirit that is upon you and will put it upon them' (Num 11:17); 'and it came to pass when the spirit rested upon them' (Num 11:25); 'the spirit of the Lord spoke by me' (2 Sam 23:2) — and this is frequent.
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And it is also the name for purpose and will: 'a fool lays bare all his spirit' (Prov 29:11) — meaning: his purpose and will. Similar to it: 'the spirit of Egypt shall be emptied from within it and I will swallow up its counsel' (Is 19:3) — meaning: its purposes will be shattered and its planning concealed. Similar to it: 'who has measured the spirit of the Lord, and what man of His counsel informs Him?' (Is 40:13) — meaning: who is it that knows the ordering of His will, or apprehends His governance of existence as it is, so as to inform us of it? — as we shall explain in chapters to come on governance.
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Every ruach attributed to God falls under the fifth sense, and some of them under the final sense, which is will — as I have explained. Each passage is to be interpreted according to what that text indicates.