The nature of the soul is a deep and complicated topic, but it can be summarized as our spiritual life — that is, who we are in terms of our thoughts and affections. And that, generally, is the internal sense when the Bible talks of a soul. You could be missing limbs, disfigured in the body due to illness or accident, paralyzed, but you would still be a complete human being. That's because the soul is the real you, and the soul has to do with internal things, not the state of your body.

4267. 'And he commanded the first, saying, When Esau my brother meets you and asks you, saying, To whom do you belong; and where are you going; and whose are these in front of you? then you shall say, They belong to your servant Jacob; it is a gift sent to my lord Esau; and behold, he also is behind us' means submission. This likewise is clear from the internal sense of individual words, from which this general meaning emerges. Submission and what goes with submission is clearly the meaning, for Jacob commanded his servants to call his brother 'lord' and himself 'servant', and to say that the gift was being sent as if to a lord from his servant. It has been shown many times that in relation to each other good is 'lord' and truth 'servant', and also that they are nevertheless called 'brothers'. They are called 'brothers' because when good and truth have been joined together, good manifests itself within truth as in an image, and after that they act conjointly to bring about the effect. But good is called 'lord' and truth 'servant' before they have been joined together, the more so when there is argument over which one has priority over the other.