Isaiah 42:23

23 Which of you will listen to this, will pay attention and respond from now on?

Isaiah 42:23 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 42:23

Who among you will give ear to this?
&c.] To this prophecy of your destruction, and to what follows concerning it: who will hearken and hear for the time to come?
and receive instruction from hence, and repent and reform? none at all; so blind, and deaf, and stupid, were they both before, and at their destruction, and even ever since; they take no notice of the hand of God upon them, nor hearken to the rod, any more than to the word of God; which seems to be what is meant by "the time to come", or "hereafter"; and this will be their case till the veil is taken away, and then they shall see and hear, and turn to the Lord.

Isaiah 42:23 In-Context

21 The LORD desired for the sake of his righteousness to expand and glorify the Instruction.

22 But this is a people plundered and looted, everyone trapped in holes and hidden in dungeons. They have become plunder with no one to rescue, loot with no one to say, "Give it back."

23 Which of you will listen to this, will pay attention and respond from now on?

24 Who gave Jacob to the looter, and Israel to the plunderers? Wasn't it the LORD, the one we sinned against? They were not willing to walk in God's ways, and wouldn't listen to his teaching.

25 So God poured out on Jacob the heat of his anger and the fury of battle. It scorched him, and he didn't know it; it burned him, but he didn't give it much thought.