Text -- Isaiah 33:8 (NET)

33:8 Highways are empty, there are no travelers. Treaties are broken, witnesses are despised, human life is treated with disrespect.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Isa 33:8

¹ tn Or “desolate” (NAB, NASB); NIV, NRSV, NLT “deserted.”

² tn Heb “the one passing by on the road ceases.”

³ tn Heb “one breaks a treaty”; NAB “Covenants are broken.”

⁴ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “he despises cities.” The term עָרִים (’arim, “cities”) is probably a corruption of an original עֵדִים (’edim, “[legal] witnesses”), a reading that is preserved in the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a. Confusion of dalet (ד) and resh (ר) is a well-attested scribal error.

⁵ tn Heb “he does not regard human beings.”