The three parallel lines in this verse refer to the drought-stricken earth and its leaders who are starving. It is typical of Isaiah’s style to use three or four synonymous expressions to emphasize a point.
The earth mourns and withers: There is alliteration and assonance in the two Hebrew verbs here, which are ʾabelah nabelah. The repetition of sounds highlights them. These two verbs describe a drought (compare Joel 1.10-12). Instead of mourns, many versions say “dries up” (Good News Translation, New Revised Standard Version, New International Version, Revised English Bible) to express this verb nonfiguratively. However, New Jerusalem Bible and Bible en français courant keep the personification of the earth mourning, as in Revised Standard Version.
The world languishes and withers: The Hebrew noun for world is a poetic term used often in parallel with the word for earth (see 13.11). It is especially common in Psalms (see, for example, 19.4; 77.18; 96.13). The Hebrew verb rendered languishes often describes something that is exhausted and weak. Here it has the sense of “wilts” (Revised English Bible; see 16.8; Joel 1.12). If translators find it difficult to distinguish the first two lines of this verse, they may combine them; for example, Contemporary English Version simply has “The earth wilts away.”
The heavens languish together with the earth: The word heavens forms a neat parallel with earth and world, but there is a textual problem in this line. Masoretic Text literally reads “the height of the people of the earth languishes.” The Hebrew word for “height” often refers to high places or top leaders, but it can be a figure for the heavens, that is, the sky. Some commentators and versions emend the Hebrew word for “people” (ʿam) to read “together with” (ʿim), so that the whole lines means “both the sky and the earth languish/decay” (so Revised Standard Version, New Revised Standard Version, Good News Translation, Bible en français courant, Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch). Hebrew Old Testament Text Project and de~Waard recommend keeping Masoretic Text, which New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh does with “The most exalted people of the earth languish” (similarly New International Version). Other versions that follow Masoretic Text here are New Jerusalem Bible with “the pick of earth’s people are withering away” and Contemporary English Version with “its mighty leaders melt to nothing.” It is best to render Masoretic Text here.
Translation examples for this verse are:
• The earth laments and dries up, the world decays and dries up;
the exalted of the earth fade away.
• The earth mourns and shrivels up, the world withers and shrivels;
the mighty leaders of the earth wither.
Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Sterk, Jan. A Handbook on Isaiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2011. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .