Discovery BoxIsaiah 7:24 
Context7:24 With bow and arrow 1 men will hunt 2 there, for the whole land will be covered 3 with thorns and briers.
Isaiah 10:19
Context10:19 There will be so few trees left in his forest,
a child will be able to count them. 4
Isaiah 17:2
Context17:2 The cities of Aroer are abandoned. 5
They will be used for herds,
which will lie down there in peace. 6
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. 7
Isaiah 33:8
Contextthere are no travelers. 9
Treaties are broken, 10
witnesses are despised, 11
human life is treated with disrespect. 12
Isaiah 33:24
Context33:24 No resident of Zion 13 will say, “I am ill”;
the people who live there will have their sin forgiven.
1 tn Heb “with arrows and a bow.” The more common English idiom is “bow[s] and arrow[s].”
2 tn Heb “go” (so NAB, NIV, NRSV); TEV “go hunting.”
3 tn Heb “will be” (so NASB, NRSV).
4 tn Heb “and the rest of the trees of his forest will be counted, and a child will record them.”
5 tn Three cities are known by this name in the OT: (1) an Aroer located near the Arnon, (2) an Aroer in Ammon, and (3) an Aroer of Judah. (See BDB 792-93 s.v. עֲרֹעֵר, and HALOT 883 s.v. II עֲרוֹעֵר.) There is no mention of an Aroer in Syrian territory. For this reason some want to emend the text here to עֲזֻבוֹת עָרַיהָ עֲדֵי עַד (’azuvot ’arayha ’adey ’ad, “her cities are permanently abandoned”). However, Aroer near the Arnon was taken by Israel and later conquered by the Syrians. (See Josh 12:2; 13:9, 16; Judg 11:26; 2 Kgs 10:33). This oracle pertains to Israel as well as Syria (note v. 3), so it is possible that this is a reference to Israelite and/or Syrian losses in Transjordan.
6 tn Heb “and they lie down and there is no one scaring [them].”
7 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.
8 tn Or “desolate” (NAB, NASB); NIV, NRSV, NLT “deserted.”
9 tn Heb “the one passing by on the road ceases.”
10 tn Heb “one breaks a treaty”; NAB “Covenants are broken.”
11 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.
12 tn Heb “he does not regard human beings.”
13 tn The words “of Zion” are supplied in the translation for clarification.
