Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary
When they ceased to be deaf to this crying contradiction, they would recognise with penitence that it was but the merited punishment of God. "Who among you will give ear to this, attend, and hear afar off? Who has give up Jacob to plundering, and Israel to the spoilers? Is it not Jehovah, against whom we have sinned? and they would not walk in His ways, and hearkened not to His law. Then He poured upon it in burning heat His wrath, and the strength of the fury of war: and this set it in flames round about, and it did not come to be recognised; it set it on fire, and it did not lay it to heart." The question in Isa 42:23 has not the force of a negative sentence, "No one does this," but of a wish, "O that one would" (as in Sa2 23:15; Sa2 15:4; Ges. 136, 1). If they had but an inward ear for the contradiction which the state of Israel presented to its true calling, and the earlier manifestations of divine mercy, and would but give up their previous deafness for the time to come: this must lead to the knowledge and confession expressed in Isa 42:24. The names Jacob and Israel here follow one another in the same order as in Isa 29:23; Isa 40:27 (compare Isa 41:8, where this would have been impracticable). זוּ belongs to לו in the sense of cui. The punctuation does not acknowledge this relative use of זו (on which, see at Isa 43:21), and therefore puts the athnach in the wrong place (see Rashi). In the words "we have sinned" the prophet identifies himself with the exiles, in whose sin he knew and felt that he was really involved (cf., Isa 6:5). The objective affirmation which follows applies to the former generations, who had sinned on till the measure became full. הלוך takes the place of the object to אבוּ (see Isa 1:17); the more usual expression would be ללכת; the inverted order of the words makes the assertion all the more energetic. In Isa 42:25 the genitive relation אפּו חמת is avoided, probably in favour of the similar ring of חמה and מלחמה. חמה is either the accusative of the object, and אפּו a subordinate statement of what constituted the burning heat (cf., Ewald, 287, k), or else an accusative, of more precise definition = בּחמה in Isa 66:15 (Ges. 118, 3). The outpouring is also connected by zeugma with the "violence of war." The milchâmâh then becomes the subject. The war-fury raged without result. Israel was not brought to reflection.
John Gill Bible Commentary
Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers?.... To the Roman soldiers, to be spoiled and robbed by them? this was not owing to chance and fortune, or to the superior skill and power of the Roman army:
did not the Lord, he against whom we have sinned? he did, but not without cause; he was justly provoked to it by the sins of the Jews, which were the meritorious and procuring causes of it; yet the Roman army could not have taken their city and plundered it had it not been the will of God, who for their sins, delivered it up to them; even Titus, the Heathen emperor, himself saw the hand of God in it, and acknowledged it;
"God favouring us (says he (c)) we have made war; it is God that drew the Jews out of those fortresses; for what could human hands and machines do against such towers?''
for they would not walk in his ways; in Christ, the way, the truth, and the life; nor in the ways of his commandments; or in the ordinances of the Gospel; all which they rejected:
neither were they obedient unto his law; or "doctrine" (d); the doctrine of the Gospel, particularly the doctrine of justification by faith in the righteousness of Christ; they went about to establish their own righteousness, and did not submit to his; and also every other doctrine respecting the person, office, and grace of Christ, whom they disbelieved, and refused to receive.
(c) lb. (De Bello Jud. l. 7. c. 9.) sect. 1. (d) "non acquieverunt in doctrina ejus", Forerius.