Your new moons and your appointed feasts: For new moons, see the previous verse. Appointed feasts renders a Hebrew word that comes from a root meaning “appoint.” The form of the word here literally means “appointed time/place” or “regular meeting.” The expression refers to festivals that were held regularly at fixed points in time. Good News Translation has simply “holy days.” In many languages it will be enough to render feasts without any qualifier, especially if appointed or “holy” would cause problems of naturalness or interpretation.

My soul hates is a very harsh expression—a direct statement in which the LORD expresses his hatred for the religious practices of his people. Revised English Bible has “I loathe,” and New Jerusalem Bible says “I utterly detest.” When Yahweh speaks of my soul he is not speaking of a part of himself but of his whole self. In English “my very being” is a good alternative. In this context translators could simply use the pronoun “I,” as Good News Translation has done. But translators should not follow Good News Translation automatically. Each language may have its particular way of expressing this type of emphatic disgust; for example, “my inside hates.”

They have become a burden to me: They refers to the various religious festivals mentioned earlier. Yahweh describes them as a burden. He is not referring to a physical load he is carrying, but he compares his feelings to a heavy load that weighs him down; the festivals depress him. There is a strong negative tone implied in this very human way of speaking. Translators should try to maintain the figure of a burden, which is a load that is almost too heavy to bear. If this is not possible, they may express the reality it represents by saying “they are unacceptable/intolerable to me.”

I am weary of bearing them is another very human expression, used figuratively. God is tired of enduring the festivals. Translators will need to translate this part of the verse in light of how they rendered the line before it, with or without the figure of a burden. Good News Translation has combined the last two lines into a single sentence. This is an option for translators, especially if it provides a natural expression that combines the idea of a (heavy) burden with the action of having to carry it. New Jerusalem Bible also combines these lines, translating “to me they are a burden I am tired of bearing.”

Translation examples for this verse are:

• Your worship at the New Moon Feast and other special feast times I detest;
they are like a heavy burden upon me,
I am tired of them.

• I loathe your worship rites at each New Moon and special feast;
they are like a heavy burden I no longer want to carry.

Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Sterk, Jan. A Handbook on Isaiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2011. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .