Isaiah 42:24-25

The enigma of Israel's history is that Jehovah its God has given it over to its enemies, a truth which the nation as a whole has never yet laid to heart.

for a spoil A better reading (which is probably that intended by the consonantal text) is to the spoiler. (Cf. ch. Isaiah 10:13.)

did not the Lord The whole of this answer is regarded by Duhm and Cheyne as spurious. Its removal gets rid of an awkward alternation of persons, and enables us to read Isaiah 42:25 as a continuation of the question in the first part of Isaiah 42:24. But Duhm goes too far when he objects to the substanceof the answer, on the ground that so explicit a confession of sin is improbable before ch. Isaiah 43:1 ff. The two last clauses are to be translated as relatives, and in whose ways they would not walk (so R.V.), and whose law they would not obey.