24:5 The earth is defiled by 1 its inhabitants, 2
for they have violated laws,
disregarded the regulation, 3
and broken the permanent treaty. 4
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 “beneath”; cf. KJV, ASV, NRSV “under”; NAB “because of.”
2 sn Isa 26:21 suggests that the earth’s inhabitants defiled the earth by shedding the blood of their fellow human beings. See also Num 35:33-34, which assumes that bloodshed defiles a land.
3 tn Heb “moved past [the?] regulation.”
4 tn Or “everlasting covenant” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NAB “the ancient covenant”; CEV “their agreement that was to last forever.”
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.”