19:5 The water of the sea will be dried up,
and the river will dry up and be empty. 1
33:8 Highways are empty, 2
there are no travelers. 3
Treaties are broken, 4
witnesses are despised, 5
human life is treated with disrespect. 6
1 tn Heb “will dry up and be dry.” Two synonyms are joined for emphasis.
2 tn Or “desolate” (NAB, NASB); NIV, NRSV, NLT “deserted.”
3 tn Heb “the one passing by on the road ceases.”
4 tn Heb “one breaks a treaty”; NAB “Covenants are broken.”
5 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.
6 tn Heb “he does not regard human beings.”