13:7 For this reason all hands hang limp, 1
every human heart loses its courage. 2
17:11 The day you begin cultivating, you do what you can to make it grow; 3
the morning you begin planting, you do what you can to make it sprout.
Yet the harvest will disappear 4 in the day of disease
and incurable pain.
33:8 Highways are empty, 5
there are no travelers. 6
Treaties are broken, 7
witnesses are despised, 8
human life is treated with disrespect. 9
1 tn Heb “drop”; KJV “be faint”; ASV “be feeble”; NAB “fall helpless.”
2 tn Heb “melts” (so NAB).
3 tn Heb “in the day of your planting you [?].” The precise meaning of the verb תְּשַׂגְשֵׂגִי (tÿsagsegi) is unclear. It is sometimes derived from שׂוּג/סוּג (sug, “to fence in”; see BDB 691 s.v. II סוּג). In this case one could translate “you build a protective fence.” However, the parallelism is tighter if one derives the form from שָׂגָא/שָׂגָה (saga’/sagah, “to grow”); see J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:351, n. 4. For this verb, see BDB 960 s.v. שָׂגָא.
4 tc The Hebrew text has, “a heap of harvest.” However, better sense is achieved if נֵד (ned, “heap”) is emended to a verb. Options include נַד (nad, Qal perfect third masculine singular from נָדַד [nadad, “flee, depart”]), נָדַד (Qal perfect third masculine singular from נָדַד), נֹדֵד (noded, Qal active participle from נָדַד), and נָד (nad, Qal perfect third masculine singular, or participle masculine singular, from נוּד [nud, “wander, flutter”]). See BDB 626 s.v. נוּד and HALOT 672 s.v. I נדד. One could translate literally: “[the harvest] departs,” or “[the harvest] flies away.”
5 tn Or “desolate” (NAB, NASB); NIV, NRSV, NLT “deserted.”
6 tn Heb “the one passing by on the road ceases.”
7 tn Heb “one breaks a treaty”; NAB “Covenants are broken.”
8 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 1QIsaa. Confusion of dalet (ד) and resh (ר) is a well-attested scribal error.
9 tn Heb “he does not regard human beings.”