Discovery BoxIsaiah 17:1 
Context17:1 Here is a message about Damascus:
“Look, Damascus is no longer a city,
it is a heap of ruins!
Isaiah 23:10
Context23:10 Daughter Tarshish, travel back to your land, as one crosses the Nile;
there is no longer any marketplace in Tyre. 1
Isaiah 33:8
Contextthere are no travelers. 3
Treaties are broken, 4
witnesses are despised, 5
human life is treated with disrespect. 6
Isaiah 33:24
Context33:24 No resident of Zion 7 will say, “I am ill”;
the people who live there will have their sin forgiven.
1 tc This meaning of this verse is unclear. The Hebrew text reads literally, “Cross over your land, like the Nile, daughter of Tarshish, there is no more waistband.” The translation assumes an emendation of מֵזַח (mezakh, “waistband”) to מָחֹז (makhoz, “harbor, marketplace”; see Ps 107:30). The term עָבַר (’avar, “cross over”) is probably used here of traveling over the water (as in v. 6). The command is addressed to personified Tarshish, who here represents her merchants. The Qumran scroll 1QIsaa has עבדי (“work, cultivate”) instead of עִבְרִי (’ivri, “cross over”). In this case one might translate “Cultivate your land, like they do the Nile region” (cf. NIV, CEV). The point would be that the people of Tarshish should turn to agriculture because they will no longer be able to get what they need through the marketplace in Tyre.
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.”
7 tn The words “of Zion” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
