“Look how the oppressor has met his end!
Hostility 2 has ceased!
30:7 Egypt is totally incapable of helping. 3
For this reason I call her
‘Proud one 4 who is silenced.’” 5
33:8 Highways are empty, 6
there are no travelers. 7
Treaties are broken, 8
witnesses are despised, 9
human life is treated with disrespect. 10
1 tn Heb “you will lift up this taunt over the king of Babylon, saying.”
2 tc The word in the Hebrew text (מַדְהֵבָה, madhevah) is unattested elsewhere and of uncertain meaning. Many (following the Qumran scroll 1QIsaa) assume a dalet-resh (ד-ר) confusion and emend the form to מַרְהֵבָה (marhevah, “onslaught”). See HALOT 548 s.v. II *מִדָּה and HALOT 633 s.v. *מַרְהֵבָה.
3 tn Heb “As for Egypt, with vanity and emptiness they help.”
4 tn Heb “Rahab” (רַהַב, rahav), which also appears as a name for Egypt in Ps 87:4. The epithet is also used in the OT for a mythical sea monster symbolic of chaos. See the note at 51:9. A number of English versions use the name “Rahab” (e.g., ASV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NRSV) while others attempt some sort of translation (cf. CEV “a helpless monster”; TEV, NLT “the Harmless Dragon”).
5 tn The MT reads “Rahab, they, sitting.” The translation above assumes an emendation of הֵם שָׁבֶת (hem shavet) to הַמָּשְׁבָּת (hammashbat), a Hophal participle with prefixed definite article, meaning “the one who is made to cease,” i.e., “destroyed,” or “silenced.” See HALOT 444-45 s.v. ישׁב.
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.”