"Hear, you deaf; look, you blind, and see! Who is blind but My servant, and deaf like the messenger I send? Who is blind like the one in covenant with Me, blind like the servant of the Lord?" (Isaiah 42:18-19) This is a deliberate refusal to see and hear. That's why the Lord says it is the most profound sort of blindness and deafness, far more profound than a physical disability. These are a people blessed with the law and the commandments---blessed by a covenant with Almighty God---but some of them don't want to acknowledge Him.
"You have seen many things, but you pay no attention; your ears are open, but you do not listen." (Isaiah 42:20) They have physical sight but refuse to acknowledge the works the Lord has done among them. Using the phrase "your ears are open" means that they have the physical ability to hear but they have heard the perfect and infallible word of God but have not been willing to allow it to minister to them.
"It pleased the Lord for the sake of His righteousness to make His law great and glorious. But this is a people plundered and looted, all of them trapped in pits or hidden away in prisons. They have become plunder, with no one to rescue them; they have been made loot, with no one to say, 'Send them back.'" (Isaiah 42:21-22) The people of the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah ended up plundered and looted by their enemies. But they were already spiritually plundered and looted before that happened. In giving themselves up to idolatry and to the carnal things of this world, they were plundered and looted by unrighteousness. They were overcome by sin. They became spiritually unwell. The downfall of Israel and Judah as nations would not have happened if their spiritual downfall had not occurred.
Because so many exchanged their worship of the one true God---the righteous and holy and powerful God who loved them---for the worship of idols or the worship of self or the worship of carnal pleasures, the Lord gave them over to their enemies. Isaiah calls upon the people to take the message of the Lord to heart and to recognize that their troubles are a result of their sin. "Which of you will listen to this or pay close attention in time to come? Who handed Jacob over to become loot, and Israel to the plunderers? Was it not the Lord, against whom we have sinned? For they would not follow His ways; they did not obey His law. So He poured out on them His burning anger, the violence of war. It enveloped them in flames, yet they did not understand; it consumed them, yet they did not take it to heart." (Isaiah 42:23-25)
The purpose of discipline is not to destroy but to correct. The Lord allowed Isaiah's people to be conquered not because He wanted to make an end of them as a people but to prove to them that He is the only God and that they are harming themselves by worshiping anyone or anything else. Their idols were not able to save them from their enemies. Their defeat was intended to prove that they had placed their trust in useless things. If they would take that to heart, they would turn back to the Lord and trust only in Him and receive mercy and help. The northern kingdom persisted in idolatry until it was conquered by Assyria. Judah's national downfall took longer because it's spiritual downfall took longer, but eventually it was conquered by Babylon. This was not the end of them as a people but Isaiah foresees the things that will happen between now, in Chapter 42, and the restoration of the nation.
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