Yesaya 33:8

33:8 Highways are empty, ¹ 

there are no travelers. ² 

Treaties are broken, ³ 

witnesses are despised, ⁴ 

human life is treated with disrespect. ⁵ 

Yesaya 42:6

42:6 “I, the Lord, officially commission you; ⁶ 

I take hold of your hand.

I protect you ⁷  and make you a covenant mediator for people, ⁸ 

and a light ⁹  to the nations, ¹⁰ 

Yesaya 61:8

61:8 For I, the Lord, love justice

and hate robbery and sin.

I will repay them because of my faithfulness; ¹¹ 

I will make a permanent covenant with them.

[33:8]  ¹ tn Or “desolate” (NAB, NASB); NIV, NRSV, NLT “deserted.”

[33:8]  ² tn Heb “the one passing by on the road ceases.”

[33:8]  ³ tn Heb “one breaks a treaty”; NAB “Covenants are broken.”

[33:8]  ⁴ 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 1QIsa^a. Confusion of dalet (ד) and resh (ר) is a well-attested scribal error.

[33:8]  ⁵ tn Heb “he does not regard human beings.”

[42:6]  ⁶ tn Heb “call you in righteousness.” The pronoun “you” is masculine singular, referring to the servant. See the note at 41:2.

[42:6]  ⁷ tn The translation assumes the verb is derived from the root נָצַר (natsar, “protect”). Some prefer to derive it from the root יָצַר (yatsar, “form”).

[42:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “a covenant of people.” A person cannot literally be a covenant; בְּרִית (bÿrit) is probably metonymic here, indicating a covenant mediator. The precise identity of עָם (’am, “people”) is uncertain. In v. 5 עָם refers to mankind, and the following reference to “nations” also favors this. But in 49:8, where the phrase בְּרִית עָם occurs again, Israel seems to be in view.

[42:6]  ⁹ sn Light here symbolizes deliverance from bondage and oppression; note the parallelism in 49:6b and in 51:4-6.

[42:6]  ¹⁰ tn Or “the Gentiles” (so KJV, ASV, NIV); the same Hebrew word can be translated “nations” or “Gentiles” depending on the context.

[61:8]  ¹¹ tn Heb “in faithfulness”; NASB, NRSV, NLT “faithfully.”