33:8 Highways are empty, 1
there are no travelers. 2
Treaties are broken, 3
witnesses are despised, 4
human life is treated with disrespect. 5
1 tn Or “desolate” (NAB, NASB); NIV, NRSV, NLT “deserted.”
2 tn Heb “the one passing by on the road ceases.”
3 tn Heb “one breaks a treaty”; NAB “Covenants are broken.”
4 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.
5 tn Heb “he does not regard human beings.”