Does the Bible Imply the Holy Spirit Is Female?

Some try to state that the Spirit is referred to with feminine descriptors or that verbs attributed to femininity are used; therefore, the Holy Spirit is feminine. But this is a faulty conclusion based on an incomplete understanding of Hebrew (and Greek) cases.

For example, in Genesis 1:2, “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” The Hebrew word for hovering here is רחפ rachaph and is translated in the English versions as hover or move. However, some paraphrases use brood to translate this Hebrew word, and people have tried to force this to mean the Spirit is acting like a mother bird and, therefore, must be or must have feminine qualities. In the first case, brood is a terrible translation here, and hover or move is by far the preferred translation. Second, the earth was only water at this point, so using the word brood here makes no sense. No living thing (with the possible exception of angels) had been created yet, so brood cannot be the proper word choice here.

Is Wisdom the Holy Spirit or a Personified Attribute of God?

The usual argument for the Holy Spirit being feminine (or having feminine qualities) is based on the personification of wisdom in Proverbs 8:1–9:6, and I will include a few highlights below. In that extended passage, wisdom and understanding are described with feminine pronouns. But aside from the fact that the passage is poetry, it is not describing the Godhead’s gender—“wisdom” is never called the Spirit or Holy Spirit and, in fact, is made plain that it is a characteristic of the entire Godhead.

God did not at some point before creation “possess” the Holy Spirit—he is an eternal part of the Godhead.

Proverbs 8:22–23 makes this plain. God did not at some point before creation “possess” the Holy Spirit—he is an eternal part of the Godhead. The Hebrew word here is קנה qanah and can mean to “buy,” “obtain,” “possess,” or “get.” The word established is the Hebrew (nacak) which literally means to be anointed or poured out, like oil on the new king’s head (like in 1 Samuel 16:13 and 1 Kings 1:39).

The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up at the first, before the beginning of the earth. (Proverbs 8:22–23)

Then Proverbs 8:24–25 uses a very interesting Hebrew word (chyl) to describe wisdom. It basically means to “be born through labor” and is often translated to describe childbirth. These verses are saying that God brought forth, or birthed, wisdom—something which could never be said of the Holy Spirit.

When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth. (Proverbs 8:24–25)

But when they try to associate the Holy Spirit with a feminine wisdom, they completely ignore Proverbs 3:19–20: “The LORD by wisdom founded the earth; by understanding he established the heavens; by his knowledge the deeps broke open, and the clouds drop down the dew.”

And Proverbs 7:4: “Say to wisdom, ‘You are my sister,’ and call insight your intimate friend.”

In the first passage above (Proverbs 3), wisdom is feminine, and understanding is masculine, but in the Proverbs 7:4 passage, both are feminine nouns. It is clear after reading those passages that Solomon is personifying wisdom and intelligence (two characteristics of God) and making them easy to identify in poetic form. It is saying nothing about the Holy Spirit’s supposed feminine gender.

Is the Holy Spirit Female?

The other commonly used argument (and this may be the most common one in Latin America) is that the Hebrew word ruach is a feminine noun. That word can mean anything from “wind,” “breath,” “spirit,” or “Spirit.” But in many cases, spirit is in the lowercase and is most often referring to the spirit (feminine noun) of a man (masculine noun). Some examples would be:

But when they told him all the words which Joseph, which he had said to them, and when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of their father Jacob revived. (Genesis 45:27)

Or when the spirit of jealousy comes over a man and he is jealous of his wife. Then he shall set the woman before the LORD, and the priest shall carry out for her all this law. (Numbers 5:30)

But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it. (Numbers 14:24)

But Sihon king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him, for the LORD your God hardened his spirit and made his heart obstinate, that he might give him into your hand, as he is this day. (Deuteronomy 2:30)

And God split open the hollow place that is at Lehi, and water came out from it. And when he drank, his spirit returned, and he revived. Therefore the name of it was called En-hakkore; it is at Lehi to this day. (Judges 15:19)

I could have included hundreds of verses like these. So clearly, a feminine noun has been used many times to describe an obvious male’s spirit (his inner self).

Also, in most cases in the OT, Spirit is not a stand-alone noun but used as a descriptor of God (masculine noun). Usually, the phrase is “The Spirit of the Lord” or “The Spirit of God.”

The Spirit of the LORD speaks by me; his word is on my tongue. (2 Samuel 23:2)

Then the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, and he stood above the people, and said to them, “Thus says God, ‘Why do you break the commandments of the LORD, so that you cannot prosper? Because you have forsaken the LORD, he has forsaken you.’” (2 Chronicles 24:20)

Grammatical Gender

For some languages, like Hebrew and Greek (and even modern ones like German), the masculine or feminine case of a noun actually means little if anything relating to gender in most words. For example, you basically have three genders in German—masculine, feminine, and neuter—and although English has the same three genders, they play a very different role in German grammar. Gender in English is what’s called natural gender; for instance, boy and girl are examples of masculine and feminine gender words, while computer is an example of a neuter gender word.

In German, most gender is unnatural. So instead of referring to a word’s meaning, gender refers to the word itself. To point out the gender of nouns, you use different gender markers. The three gender markers that mean the (singular) in German are der (masculine), die (feminine), and das (neuter). The plural form of the definite article is die. English has only one gender marker for the definite article of all nouns, namely the.

Look at the words for eating utensils, where you have all three bases covered: der Löffel (the spoon), die Gabel (the fork), and das Messer (the knife). Why should a spoon be masculine, a fork feminine, and a knife neuter? Don’t worry if you don’t see any logical pattern here because there isn’t one. This also holds true for Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic, except that Hebrew does not have gender markers.

So breath (as the examples of spirit above) in Hebrew is always a feminine noun, even when describing a man’s breath.

So breath (as the examples of spirit above) in Hebrew is always a feminine noun, even when describing a man’s breath. This is also the case with spirit which is the same Hebrew word (ruach). Look for example at the verse here in Isaiah 2:22: “Stop regarding man in whose nostrils is breath, for of what account is he?”

In Greek, the word breath or spirit or Spirit is usually pneuma which is a neuter noun. But again, it is often used in reference to a man, or to God.

For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. (1 Corinthians 2:11)

And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will kill with the breath of his mouth and bring to nothing by the appearance of his coming. (2 Thessalonians 2:8)

I know of no passage in the original Hebrew or Greek or the English translations where the Holy Spirit is ever referred to with a feminine pronoun. There is no “she” or “her” ever used in connection with the Holy Spirit. In fact, there are three times where Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit with masculine pronouns:

The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. (John 14:17)

But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. (John 15:26)

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. (John 16:13)

In Romans 8, Paul uses masculine pronouns twice to describe the Spirit:

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. (Romans 8:9)

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. (Romans 8:11)

Peter also uses a masculine pronoun for the Holy Spirit: “If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified” (1 Peter 4:14 NKJV).

So in conclusion, the cases of nouns may be either masculine, feminine, or neuter, but they rarely refer to the “gender of the object” (and when they do, it is almost always in reference to animals that are indisputable [heifer vs. bull, for example]). Gender is mostly left for the pronouns to elucidate and clarify. God is Spirit and has no physical or biological gender but is consistently portrayed as relationally male—he is Father, King, and Lord, not Mother, Queen, or Lady. When God the Son (not daughter) became incarnate, he did so as a man, Jesus Christ, not a woman. Attempts to identify God with feminine or neuter pronouns are not supported by Scripture and, as such, should be rejected.