Discovery BoxIsaiah 24:5 
Context24:5 The earth is defiled by 1 its inhabitants, 2
for they have violated laws,
disregarded the regulation, 3
and broken the permanent treaty. 4
Isaiah 33:8
Contextthere are no travelers. 6
Treaties are broken, 7
witnesses are despised, 8
human life is treated with disrespect. 9
1 tn Heb “beneath”; cf. KJV, ASV, NRSV “under”; NAB “because of.”
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.
3 tn Heb “moved past [the?] regulation.”
4 tn Or “everlasting covenant” (KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NAB “the ancient covenant”; CEV “their agreement that was to last forever.”
sn For a lengthy discussion of the identity of this covenant/treaty, see R. Chisholm, “The ‘Everlasting Covenant’ and the ‘City of Chaos’: Intentional Ambiguity and Irony in Isaiah 24,” CTR 6 (1993): 237-53. In this context, where judgment comes upon both the pagan nations and God’s covenant community, the phrase “permanent treaty” is intentionally ambiguous. For the nations this treaty is the Noahic mandate of Gen 9:1-7 with its specific stipulations and central regulation (Gen 9:7). By shedding blood, the warlike nations violated this treaty, which promotes population growth and prohibits murder. For Israel, which was also guilty of bloodshed (see Isa 1:15, 21; 4:4), this “permanent treaty” would refer more specifically to the Mosaic Law and its regulations prohibiting murder (Exod 20:13; Num 35:6-34), which are an extension of the Noahic mandate.
5 tn Or “desolate” (NAB, NASB); NIV, NRSV, NLT “deserted.”
6 tn Heb “the one passing by on the road ceases.”
7 tn Heb “one breaks a treaty”; NAB “Covenants are broken.”
8 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.
9 tn Heb “he does not regard human beings.”
