“Upon the Wings of His Spirit”: A Note on Hebrew RÛAH and 2 Nephi 4:25

Nephi, in composing his psalm (2 Nephi 4:15–35), incorporates a poetic idiom from Psalm 18:10 (2 Samuel 22:11) and Psalm 104:3 to describe his participation in a form of divine travel. This experience constituted a part of the vision in which he saw “the things which [his] father saw” in the latter’s dream of the tree of life (see 1 Nephi 11:1–3; 14:29–30). Nephi’s use of this idiom becomes readily apparent when the range of meaning for the Hebrew word rûah is considered. Nephi’s experience helps our understanding of other scriptural scenes where similar divine travel is described.