Isaiah 24:3

Hebrew (Westminster Leningrad Codex)

English Translation

The earth shall be utterly emptied, and utterly laid waste; for Yahweh has spoken this word.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Highlights

Septuagint runs longer here — compare

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הִבּ֧וֹק

bâqaq

H1238

“to empty”

Verb, Niphal, Infinitive Absolute

Appears 9× in the Hebrew Bible
First appears at Isaiah 19:3

Full BDB Definition

Origin: a primitive root

TWOT: 273

to empty - (Qal) - to empty, lay waste - to make void (figuratively) - (Niphal) to be emptied - (Polel) to empty out, devastate

About this verse

These counts appear in no published source. They are computed here, from the morphology-tagged text and Lemma’s own curated glosses. What Lemma adds →

11: words
9: distinct lemmas
Prophets: section

Notable vocabulary

The rarest word here is הִבּ֧וֹק to empty H1238 — appearing just 9 times in the whole Hebrew Bible.

Shared distinctive vocabulary

הִבּ֧וֹק to empty H1238 occurs in 7 verses of the Hebrew Bible. Also found in:

Grammatical profile

5 verbs
3 nouns
1 pronoun
1 conjunction
1 particle

Verb forms

הִבּ֧וֹק Niphal · Infinitive Absolute
תִּבּ֛וֹק Niphal · Imperfect
וְהִבּ֣וֹז Niphal · Infinitive Absolute
תִּבּ֑וֹז Niphal · Imperfect
דִּבֶּ֖ר Piel · Perfect

Repetition

Words recur within this verse — often emphatic in Hebrew:

הִבּ֧וֹק to empty H1238 ×2
וְהִבּ֣וֹז to plunder H962 ×2

Hebrew & Septuagint length

In English translation the verse runs 16 words from the Hebrew and 24 from the Septuagint (LXX English) — the Septuagint runs noticeably longer here. See the side-by-side →

A rough comparison of the two English renderings, which tokenize alike — not a word-level alignment.

Word counts can differ between the Hebrew and the Greek without any difference in meaning — e.g. the Hebrew direct-object marker אֵת has no separate Greek word, and Greek often adds the article ὁ.

In the original languages it is 11 Hebrew tokens and 15 Greek tokens — but the two are counted differently (Hebrew bundles its prefixes and suffixes into one token; the Greek is in lemma form), so that isn’t a like-for-like length.

Cross-references

Topical passages linked to Isaiah 24:3 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge — connected by theme and wording, ordered by reader-vote popularity; previews shown in the World English Bible.

Isaiah 24:1 Behold, Yahweh makes the earth empty, and makes it waste, and turns it upside down, and scatters abroad the inhabitants of it.
Isaiah 6:11 Then I said, "Lord, how long?" He answered, "Until cities are waste without inhabitant, And houses without man, And the land becomes utterly waste,
Leviticus 26:30–35 I will destroy your high places, and cut down your incense altars, and cast your dead bodies upon the bodies of your idols; and my soul will abhor you.
Deuteronomy 29:23 [and that] the whole land of it is sulfur, and salt, [and] a burning, [that] it is not sown, nor bears, nor any grass grows therein, like the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which Yahweh overthrew in his anger, and in his wrath:
Deuteronomy 29:28 and Yahweh rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as at this day.
2 Chronicles 36:21 to fulfill the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths: [for] as long as it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.
Isaiah 21:17 and the residue of the number of the archers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar, shall be few; for Yahweh, the God of Israel, has spoken it.
Isaiah 22:25 In that day, says Yahweh of hosts, shall the nail that was fastened in a sure place give way; and it shall be hewn down, and fall; and the burden that was on it shall be cut off; for Yahweh has spoken it.

Ezekiel 36:4 therefore, you mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord Yahweh: Thus says the Lord Yahweh to the mountains and to the hills, to the watercourses and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes and to the cities that are forsaken, which are become a prey and derision to the residue of the nations that are round about;
Micah 4:4 But they will sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree; And no one will make them afraid: For the mouth of Yahweh of Hosts has spoken.
Jeremiah 13:15 Hear you, and give ear; don't be proud; for Yahweh has spoken.

Cross-references courtesy of OpenBible.info (CC BY 4.0).

Hebrew and Greek witnesses Masoretic Hebrew ↔ Greek Septuagint

The same verse in the two great witnesses to the Old Testament, shown verse-for-verse.

Here the Septuagint runs noticeably longer than the Hebrew — LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) 24 words vs World English Bible 16. A rough length comparison of the two English translations, not a word-level alignment — read both below.

These are two independent witnesses, not word-aligned to each other, and the Septuagint is shown in lemma (dictionary) form.

Hebrew Isaiah 24:3 Masoretic · Westminster Leningrad Codex

הִבּ֧וֹק תִּבּ֛וֹק הָאָ֖רֶץ וְהִבּ֣וֹז תִּבּ֑וֹז כִּ֣י יְהוָ֔ה דִּבֶּ֖ר אֶת הַדָּבָ֥ר הַזֶּֽה

The earth shall be utterly emptied, and utterly laid waste; for Yahweh has spoken this word.

World English Bible · Public Domain

Greek LXX Isaiah 24:3 Septuagint · lemma form

φθορά φθείρω ὁ γῆ καί προνομή προνομεύω ὁ γῆ ὁ γάρ στόμα κύριος λαλέω οὗτος

The earth shall be completely laid waste, and the earth shall be utterly spoiled: for the mouth of the Lord has spoken these things.

LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) · Public Domain

Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex (CC BY 4.0). Greek: Septuagint (public domain); English from LXX2012 (modern English Septuagint) (Public Domain). How the Septuagint differs from the Hebrew →

Targum (Aramaic paraphrase)

The Targum is the ancient Jewish Aramaic paraphrase of the Hebrew Scriptures — an interpretive translation, not the Hebrew text itself. Onkelos (literal) and Pseudo-Jonathan (expansive) render the Torah, and Jonathan the Prophets. Coverage is partial: where no permissively-licensed English translation exists for a verse, only the Aramaic is shown. This is verse-level text, not a word-by-word alignment to the Hebrew.

Targum Jonathan Prophets (Joshua–Malachi)

אִתְבְּזָזָא תִּתְבְּזֵז אַרְעָא וְאִתְדָשָׁא תִּתְדָשׁ אֲרֵי יְיָ מַלֵל יַת פִּתְגָמָא הָדֵין:

The land shall be utterly destroyed, it shall be utterly trampled under foot; for the Lord hath spoken this word.

Targum Jonathan — Aramaic: “Mikraot Gedolot” (public domain). English: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “London "Chaldee Paraphrase," 1871” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Commentary

Notes on Isaiah 24:3 from classic Christian and Jewish commentators (each source and its license shown beneath its notes). The classic Christian expositions comment on the surrounding passage and are grouped to its opening verse, so a note may address several verses; the Jewish commentaries on the Tanakh (Rashi and others) are per-verse, so they appear only where the commentator wrote on this verse.

Lemma curates 59 commentaries, every one of them public domain or Creative Commons licensed, each selected and text-cleaned for this edition rather than reprinted as found. About our sources →

Trapp's Complete Commentary

John Trapp

Isa 24:3 The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the LORD hath spoken this word.

Ver. 3. The land shall be utterly emptied.] See on Isa 24:1.

For the Lord hath spoken this word.] And his words are not in vain. Doth he say, and shall he not do it? {Num 23:23}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne

3. For land read earth as Isa_24:1; Isa_24:4, &c.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

John Gill's Exposition

The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled,.... Entirely emptied of its inhabitants, and wholly spoiled of its riches and substance; this is repeated, and with greater strength, to confirm what is before said, and which receives a greater confirmation by what follows:

for the Lord hath spoken this word; who is able to perform it, and who is faithful to his threatenings, as to his promises; not a word of his shall ever fail; the judgments threatened to the antichristian world are his true and faithful sayings; and the ruin of Rome is certain, because strong is the Lord that judgeth her, Rev 18:8.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The land - Hebrew, ‘The earth,’ as in Isa 24:1. It is here rendered correctly ‘the land,’ as it should have been there - meaning the land of Canaan.

And spoiled - Its valuable possessions shall become the prey of the invading foe. This is an emphatic repetition of the declaration in Isa 24:1, to show the absolute certainty of that which was threatened.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

Daniel D. Whedon

3, 4. The earth — ארצ, (aretz,) earth, or land, occurs over twelve times in this chapter, and applies to the whole land of Israel. But its parallel, תבל, (tebel,) the inhabited world, may apply to all known nations.

Haughty people — High in social position and proud in spirit. Princes, alike with the lower classes, have no escape.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

The Pulpit Commentary

The land; rather, the earth. The same word is used as in ver. I (arets). Utterly spoiled; i.e. "wasted by rival armies, which have carried fire and sword over the whole of it." Compare the declaration of our Lord, "Ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.., all these are the beginning of sorrows". (Mat_24:6-8)

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

J. A. Alexander on Isaiah

Joseph Addison Alexander

“The land shall be utterly emptied and utterly spoiled, for Jehovah speaks (or hath spoken) this word.” The last clause denotes the certainty of the event because predicted by Jehovah.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Prophecies of Isaiah (1846–1847; New York: Scribner, 1870–1878) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

unfoldingWord translationNotes

Door43 World Missions Community

The earth will be completely devastated and completely stripped

This can be stated in active form. AT: "Yahweh will completely devastate the earth and he will remove everything with value" (See: Active or Passive)

Yahweh has spoken this word

"Yahweh has said he would"

The earth dries up and withers, the world shrivels up and fades away

These two phrases mean basically the same thing. AT: "Everything on earth will dry up and die" (See: Parallelism)

The earth ... the world

Both of these represent everything that is on the earth. (See: Metonymy)

The earth is polluted by its inhabitants

The people sinning and making the earth unacceptable to God is spoken of as if the people made the earth physically unclean. This can be stated in active form. AT: "The people have polluted the earth" (See: Metaphor and Active or Passive)

they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, and broken the everlasting covenant

"they have not obeyed God's laws and statutes, and they have broken God's eternal covenant"

translationWords

Yahweh

word of God

world

waste

transgress

law

statute

eternity

covenant

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

Rashi

Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi)

shall be emptied (וְהִבּוֹק תִּבּוֹק) shall be emptied.

and it shall be pillaged (וְהִבּוֹז תִּבּוֹז) an expression of pillage and spoils.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

Ibn Ezra

Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra

הבוק תבוק. Shall be utterly emptied. Comp. בוקק (ver. 1); הבוק is infinitive Niphal of a verb בקק) ע״ע to empty). חבוק is formed like יסוב is driven back (Ps. 114:3.) הבוז תבוז Shall be utterly spoiled. The same. —Since God decreed this, there will not remain to man any cause to exalt himself above his fellow.

Ibn Ezra on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Yalkut, Sifsei Chachomim Chumash, Metsudah Publications, 2009” (CC BY 4.0); and “Commentary of Ibn Ezra on Isaiah - trans. by M. Friedlander, 1873” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.

Lesson kit

Teaching starters — assembled from the data on this page, not authored interpretation. Every prompt links to the verse data it draws on. Edit before teaching.

Isaiah, in the Prophets, opens this verse with 11 words (9 distinct Hebrew lemmas). Its most distinctive word is bâqaq (“to empty”). The Greek Septuagint runs longer here. A historical commentator’s framing appears above. Read the whole chapter for the surrounding context.

Discussion questions

How does “to empty” (bâqaq) shape what this verse is saying?
Isaiah 19:3 shares the word «to empty» with this verse. How do the two illuminate each other?
“to empty” occurs 2× in this one verse. What is the effect of the repetition?
Compared with the Hebrew, the Septuagint runs longer here. What questions does that raise?
The translations on this page render this verse differently — a whole-verse word diff, not a word-by-word alignment. What might account for the different wordings?
The verb «הִבּ֧וֹק» is Niphal Infinitive Absolute. How does its form color the action?
Reading how Trapp's Complete Commentary and The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges read this verse, where do the two commentators agree and where do they part?

Things to notice

This verse counts 11 Hebrew ↔ 15 Greek words.
These translations choose different wording for 13 words in this verse.
“to empty” occurs 2× in this single verse.
9 distinct Hebrew lemmas span 11 words in this verse.