Proverbs 20:27

spirit Lit. breath (πνοή, LXX.). The word, in this unusual sense, may probably have been chosen to recall Genesis 2:7: the Lord God … breathed into his nostrils the breath(the same word as here) of life. "The breath of the higher life, above that which he has in common with the lower animals, coming to him direct from God, such a life, with all its powers of insight, consciousness, reflection, is as a lamp which God has lighted, throwing its rays into the darkest recesses of the heart," Dean Plumptre in Speaker's Comm.

candle Rather, lamp, A.V. marg. and R.V.