Discovery BoxIsaiah 33:1 
Context33:1 The destroyer is as good as dead, 1
you who have not been destroyed!
The deceitful one is as good as dead, 2
the one whom others have not deceived!
When you are through destroying, you will be destroyed;
when you finish 3 deceiving, others will deceive you!
Isaiah 33:4
Context33:4 Your plunder 4 disappears as if locusts were eating it; 5
they swarm over it like locusts! 6
1 tn Heb “Woe [to] the destroyer.”
sn In this context “the destroyer” appears to refer collectively to the hostile nations (vv. 3-4). Assyria would probably have been primary in the minds of the prophet and his audience.
2 tn Heb “and the deceitful one”; NAB, NIV “O traitor”; NRSV “you treacherous one.” In the parallel structure הוֹי (hoy, “woe [to]”) does double duty.
3 tc The form in the Hebrew text appears to derive from an otherwise unattested verb נָלָה (nalah). The translation follows the Qumran scroll 1QIsaa in reading ככלתך, a Piel infinitival form from the verbal root כָּלָה (kalah), meaning “finish.”
4 tn The pronoun is plural; the statement is addressed to the nations who have stockpiled plunder from their conquests of others.
5 tn Heb “and your plunder is gathered, the gathering of the locust.”
6 tn Heb “like a swarm of locusts swarming on it.”
