Isaiah 42:22

וְהוּא עַם־בָּזוּז וְשָׁסוּי הָפֵחַ בַּחוּרִים כֻּלָּם וּבְבָתֵּי כְלָאִים הָחְבָּאוּ הָיוּ לָבַז וְאֵין מַצִּיל מְשִׁסָּה וְאֵין־אֹמֵר הָשַׁב׃

22 But this is a people robbed and plundered. They are all trapped in caves; they are hidden away in prisons. They have become plunder, and there is no one to be a rescuer. They are prey, and there is no one to say, "Return them!"

וְהוּא֘ עַם־בָּז֣וּז וְשָׁסוּי֒ But this is a people robbed and plundered. Both בָּזוּז and שָׁסוּי are qal passive participles. שָׁסוּי is from שָׁסַה although there is a very similar root with the same meaning, שָׁסַס (Isaiah 13:16). Mp: וְהוּא occurs at the beginning of a verse 33 times (in the Pentateuch, the note continues with "Three of them in the Torah"). The list is included below. The accent above וְהוּא֘ is zarqa (in UBS, shaped like a hook); it always precedes segolta, the three dots above וְשָׁסוּי֒. Segolta always falls early in a verse, and has about the same value as zaqef. In this case, it serves a similar task as our semicolon. The munach accenting בָּז֣וּז connects it intimately with וְשָׁסוּי֒ as a unit thought, "robbed & plundered."

הֶפֵ֤חַ בַּחוּרִים֙ כֻּלָּ֔ם וּבְבָתֵּ֥י כְלָאִ֖ים הָחְבָּ֑אוּ They are all trapped in caves; they are hidden away in prisons. הָפֵחַ is a hifil infinitive absolute from פּחַח, "ensnared." This is the only occurrence of this verbal root at all, but the Masoretes didn't call it a hapax legomenon. The phenomenon of this verb is called "denominative" since it takes its meaning from a well-known noun, פָּח "bird trap." בַּחוּרִים sounds and looks like the plural of the noun בָּחוּר "young man" (Psalm 148:12; Isaiah 23:4). But in context it's the plural of חֻר or חוֹר, "hole, hiding place" (Isaiah 11:8). וּבְבָתֵּי כְלָאִים are "houses of confinement," a more formal kind of prison. Prisoners in the Old Testament were almost always political prisoners or prisoners of the state, such as the men with whom Joseph found himself with in Egypt. Offenders of other crimes were handled locally by the civil laws of Moses or by local traditions if anything else arose. הָחְבָּאוּ is the passive hofal perfect of חבא (the root doesn't occur in the qal), "withdraw, hide." This word mainly occurs in the passive or reflexive stems: nifal, pual, hofal and hithpael, although the causative hifil also occurs. A similar root, חבה, occurs in he qal in Isaiah (26:20, "hide for a little while..."). The atnach marks the break in thought in the verse. From here the Lord turns from describing where "they" are to what "they" have become.

הָי֤וּ לָבַז֙ They have become plunder, בַּז is "spoil, plunder," the things a soldier picks up from the battlefield after the victory has been won.

וְאֵ֣ין מַצִּ֔יל and there is no one to be a rescuer. מַצִּיל is the hifil participle of נָצַל, "snatch away, rescue." The participle is attributive. The Mp note for the וְאֵין pair is that this form occurs twice in the same verse thirteen times: Dt 32:39; 1 Sam 22:8; 1 Kg 18:26; 2 Kg 4:31; Eccl 4:1; Isa 2:7; 22:22; 41:28; 42:22; 63:5; Jer 14:19; Ezek 34:6; Hab 3:17. In a sort of Masoretic oversight, the five verses with אֵין followed by וְאֵין...וְאֵין are not listed in any Masoretic notes or list that I can find. They are Psalm 144:14; Prov 21:30; Eccl 8:8; Isaiah 50:2 and Hosea 4:1. Another passage, Ecclesiastes 4:8, is covered by Mm 3838, where a list of eight verses is given in which a word occurs three times, the first and last with waw, and the second without (וְאֵין...אֵין...וְאֵין). The other seven verses of Mm 3838 are about different words.

מְשִׁסָּ֖ה וְאֵין־אֹמֵ֥ר הָשַֽׁב They are prey, and there is no one to say, "Return them!" מְשִׁסָּה "(They are) prey" stands alone; not the zaqef accenting מַצִּ֔יל and the tipha accenting מְשִׁסָּ֖ה (the form already has a qames although tipha often precipitates a pause when it forms a main syntactical break). For this reason I have taken the word as a clause by itself, as an exclamatory: "Victims!" הָשַׁב is the hifil imperative of שׁוּב "turn, return." The Mp note for הָשַׁב tells us that this form (with patach rather than sere) occurs twice: here and in Ezekiel 21:35.

The "blind" here are the Children of Israel (Isaiah 6:9, "Go preach to people who aren't going to listen..."). Who hardened their hearts so that they became ensnared like birds in a big net? God proclaimed the gospel to them through Isaiah, Hosea, Micah and Amos. Therefore the fault lay within the hearts of the Israelites themselves. We also see Jesus proclaiming the truth in Matthew 13 in order to take away the truth from people with hardened hearts. (Matt. 13:11-13; cf. also John 5:39-40). Now the Gentiles and a small remnant of Israel will truly see, and the rest of the Jews will become blind. הָאָרֶץ will become their God, and they will turn their back on their Lord.

Paul:

"We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." (2 Corinthians 3:13-18)

The 33 are: Gen. 16:12; 33:3; Lev. 21:13; Jg 3:19; 3:24; 1 Sam 17:23; 2 Sam 17:10; 23:21; 1 Kg 19:4; 2 Kg 5:25; 1 Chr 11:23; 2 Chr 27:5; 28:3; 32:30; 33:6; Job 13:28; 21:32; 22:18; 23:13; 34:29; 37:12; Psalm 9:9; 19:6; 78:38; 130:8; Isaiah 10:7; 34:17; 42:22; 53:5; Ezek 18:11; Dan 2:21; Hab 1:10; Zech 6:13.