Isaiah 24:5,6 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

The earth also Rather, And the land is defiled under the inhabitants thereof By the wickedness of its people. Here we have the causes of the divine judgment upon the land: because they have transgressed the laws The laws of God revealed to them, and pressed upon them in a singular manner; changed the ordinance God's ordinances concerning his worship and service; broken the everlasting covenant The covenant made between God and Abraham, and all his posterity, which was everlasting, both on God's part, who, upon the conditions therein expressed, engaged himself to be a God to them, and to their seed for ever; and on Israel's part, who were obliged thereby to constant and perpetual obedience through all generations. Therefore hath the curse The curse of God threatened to transgressors; devoured the earth See this illustrated Zechariah 5:1. And they that dwell therein are desolate Reduced to poverty, by the spoiling of their goods. The inhabitants are burned Destroyed by fire and sword, or consumed by the wrath of God, which is often compared to fire; and few men left The prophet's general meaning is, that the inhabitants of the land should waste away and be consumed, being partly cut off by the sword, partly dispersed by the public calamities, partly destroyed by famine, and partly carried into captivity, so that but few of them should remain, and they only of the poorer sort. And this was the face of things in Judea at the time referred to.