BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

On prophecy
Further,‘spirit of God’ may mean the human mind itself, as in Job 27.3,
‘and the spirit of God in my nose’, which alludes to the passage in Genesis
in which God blew the breath of life into the nose of man. Thus Ezekiel,
prophesying to the dead, says at 37.14,‘and I will give my spirit to you, and
you will live’, i.e.,‘I will restore life to you’. And in this sense it is said at Job
34.14,‘if he’ (i.e., God) ‘so wills, he will take back to himself his spirit (that
is, the mind which he has given us) and his breath’.This is how Genesis 6.3
is to be understood,‘my spirit will not ever reason’ (or, will not decide) ‘in
man, because he is £esh’; that is, henceforth man will act according to the
decisions of the £esh and not of the mind which I gave him to discern the
good. So also Psalm 51.12^13, ‘create in me a clean heart, O God, and
renew in me a proper’ (or, modest) ‘spirit’ (i.e., desire).‘Do not cast me away
from your sight, nor take the mind of your holiness from me’. Because sins
were believed to arise from the £esh alone, and the mind was believed to
urge nothing but good, he invokes the help of God against the desires of
the £esh, but for the mindwhich the holy God gave him, he only prays God
to preserve it.
Now since Scripture, deferring to the limitations of the common
people, is accustomed to depict God like a man, and to ascribe to God a
mind and a heart and the passions of the heart, as well as body and
breath,‘the spirit of God’ is often used in the Bible for mind, i.e., heart,
passion, force and the breath of the mouth of God. Thus Isaiah 40.13
says: ‘who has directed the spirit’ (or mind) ‘of God’ that is, who set the
mind of God to willing anything except God himself and 63.10: ‘and
they a¥icted the spirit of his sanctity with bitterness andwoe’. And hence
it often comes to be used to designate the Law of Moses because it
explains, as it were, God’s mind, as Isaiah himself states in the same 26
chapter, verse 11,‘where is’ (he) ‘who has put in the midst of them the
spirit of his sanctity’ that is, the Law of Moses, as is clearly implied by the
whole context of the speech; and Nehemiah 9.20,‘you gave themyour spirit
or good mind, so that you might make them understand’, for he means the
occasion of the giving of the Law; Deut. 4.6 also alludes to it when Moses
says,‘since it’ (namely the Law) ‘is your knowledge and prudence’, etc. So
also in Psalm 143.10,‘your good mind will lead me into a smooth place’,
that is, your mind revealed to us will lead me into the right way.
The spirit of God, as we have said, also signi¢es the breath of God,
which, like mind, heart and body, is also improperly attributed to God in
Scripture, as in Psalm 33.6.
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