Isaiah 24:5-6

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 

24:6 So a treaty curse ⁵  devours the earth;

its inhabitants pay for their guilt. ⁶ 

This is why the inhabitants of the earth disappear, ⁷ 

and are reduced to just a handful of people. ⁸ 

Isaiah 59:3

59:3 For your hands are stained with blood

and your fingers with sin;

your lips speak lies,

your tongue utters malicious words.

Ezekiel 20:18

20:18 “‘But I said to their children ⁹  in the wilderness, “Do not follow the practices of your fathers; do not observe their regulations, ¹⁰  nor defile yourselves with their idols.

Ezekiel 20:30-31

20:30 “Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says: Will you defile yourselves like your fathers ¹¹  and engage in prostitution with detestable idols? 20:31 When you present your sacrifices ¹²  – when you make your sons pass through the fire – you defile yourselves with all your idols to this very day. Will I allow you to seek me, ¹³  O house of Israel? As surely as I live, declares the sovereign Lord, I will not allow you to seek me! ¹⁴ 

Ezekiel 20:43

20:43 And there you will remember your conduct ¹⁵  and all your deeds by which you defiled yourselves. You will despise yourselves ¹⁶  because of all the evil deeds you have done.

[24:5]  ¹ tn Heb “beneath”; cf. KJV, ASV, NRSV “under”; NAB “because of.”

[24:5]  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.

[24:5]  ³ tn Heb “moved past [the?] regulation.”

[24:5]  ⁴ tn Or “everlasting covenant” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NAB “the ancient covenant”; CEV “their agreement that was to last forever.”

[24:6]  ⁵ sn Ancient Near Eastern treaties often had “curses,” or threatened judgments, attached to them. (See Deut 28 for a biblical example of such curses.) The party or parties taking an oath of allegiance acknowledged that disobedience would activate these curses, which typically threatened loss of agricultural fertility as depicted in the following verses.

[24:6]  ⁶ tn The verb אָשַׁם (’asham, “be guilty”) is here used metonymically to mean “pay, suffer for one’s guilt” (see HALOT 95 s.v. אשׁם).

[24:6]  ⁷ tn BDB 359 s.v. חָרַר derives the verb חָרוּ (kharu) from חָרַר (kharar, “burn”), but HALOT 351 s.v. II חרה understands a hapax legomenon חָרָה (kharah, “to diminish in number,” a homonym of חָרָה) here, relating it to an alleged Arabic cognate meaning “to decrease.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has חורו, perhaps understanding the root as חָוַר (khavar, “grow pale”; see Isa 29:22 and HALOT 299 s.v. I חור).

[24:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “and mankind is left small [in number].”

[20:18]  ⁹ tn Heb “sons,” reflecting the patriarchal idiom of the culture.

[20:18]  ¹⁰ tn Or “standard of justice.” See Ezek 7:27.

[20:30]  ¹¹ tn Heb “in the way of your fathers.”

[20:31]  ¹² tn Or “gifts.”

[20:31]  ¹³ tn Or “Will I reveal myself to you?”

[20:31]  ¹⁴ tn Or “I will not reveal myself to you.”

[20:43]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “ways.”

[20:43]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “loathe yourselves in your faces.”