“Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts my soul hates. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them” (Isa 1:14). I also find something similar in Psalm 11:5. I was reading Isaiah today and came across this verse—which I had never seen before, or at least it never registered with me. —R.G.
In Hebrew, as in archaic English, soul = self. In fact, biblically it is usually more accurate to say that we are souls, than that we have souls. “The ship sank, all souls lost” refers not to the spiritual salvation of the passengers, but to their deaths.
Modern versions like the NIV update the wording. Compare your quote above with the NIV:
Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festival I hate with all my being.
They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.
Or take the Parable of the Rich Fool, in the older Bibles:
“And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry” (Luke 12:19 KJV).
So, no, God does not have a part of himself that is his soul. God doesn’t have “parts.” Your eyes alit upon an interesting point, but you read too much into the text.
