Isaiah 42:23

"Who is there among you that will give ear to this? that will hearken and hear for the time to come? Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? did not Jehovah? he against whom we have sinned, and in whose ways they would not walk, neither were they obedient unto his law. Therefore he poured upon him the fierceness of his anger, and the strength of battle; and it set him on fire round about, yet he knew not; and it burned him, yet he laid it not to heart."

Here God prophesied that not even the captivity of Israel, in the complete sense, would result in the understanding of the people as a whole; and this was fulfilled in the truth that when the time came to return to Jerusalem, only a handful returned. These passages also emphasize that the hardships Israel would undergo in Babylon were solely due to the fault and rebellion of the people. There seems to be also a hope that some sense of shame could be aroused in some of the Israelites who were indeed not themselves hardened.

"So thoroughly hardened are the Jewish people as a whole, that they are represented here as being trapped in a house on fire, and even being scorched by the flames, but still unwilling to see their danger or to admit that they were hurt. What a picture of hardening! And this is their state to the present day!"[17]

"These final verses of the chapter emphasize that Israel's sufferings in exile are due to the very disobedience which they were still displaying; and there is also a plea for them to change their attitude (Isaiah 42:23)."[18]