Discovery BoxIsaiah 24:6 
Context24:6 So a treaty curse 1 devours the earth;
its inhabitants pay for their guilt. 2
This is why the inhabitants of the earth disappear, 3
and are reduced to just a handful of people. 4
Isaiah 24:13
Context24:13 This is what will happen throughout 5 the earth,
among the nations.
It will be like when they beat an olive tree,
and just a few olives are left at the end of the harvest. 6
1 sn Ancient Near Eastern treaties often had “curses,” or threatened judgments, attached to them. (See Deut 28 for a biblical example of such curses.) The party or parties taking an oath of allegiance acknowledged that disobedience would activate these curses, which typically threatened loss of agricultural fertility as depicted in the following verses.
2 tn The verb אָשַׁם (’asham, “be guilty”) is here used metonymically to mean “pay, suffer for one’s guilt” (see HALOT 95 s.v. אשׁם).
3 tn BDB 359 s.v. חָרַר derives the verb חָרוּ (kharu) from חָרַר (kharar, “burn”), but HALOT 351 s.v. II חרה understands a hapax legomenon חָרָה (kharah, “to diminish in number,” a homonym of חָרָה) here, relating it to an alleged Arabic cognate meaning “to decrease.” The Qumran scroll 1QIsaa has חורו, perhaps understanding the root as חָוַר (khavar, “grow pale”; see Isa 29:22 and HALOT 299 s.v. I חור).
4 tn Heb “and mankind is left small [in number].”
5 tn Heb “in the midst of” (so KJV, ASV, NASB).
6 sn The judgment will severely reduce the earth’s population. See v. 6.
