34:4 All the stars in the sky will fade away, 1
the sky will roll up like a scroll;
all its stars will wither,
like a leaf withers and falls from a vine
or a fig withers and falls from a tree. 2
64:6 We are all like one who is unclean,
all our so-called righteous acts are like a menstrual rag in your sight. 3
We all wither like a leaf;
our sins carry us away like the wind.
1 tc Heb “and all the host of heaven will rot.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsaa inserts “and the valleys will be split open,” but this reading may be influenced by Mic 1:4. On the other hand, the statement, if original, could have been omitted by homoioarcton, a scribe’s eye jumping from the conjunction prefixed to “the valleys” to the conjunction prefixed to the verb “rot.”
2 tn Heb “like the withering of a leaf from a vine, and like the withering from a fig tree.”
3 tn Heb “and like a garment of menstruation [are] all our righteous acts”; KJV, NIV “filthy rags”; ASV “a polluted garment.”