These two questions, Why, when I came, was there no man; why, when I called, was there no one to answer?
express dismay at the lack of enthusiasm and answers from the Lord’s people when he repeatedly came with gracious overtures to call them back. The Lord came through the mouth of his prophets, calling his people to return to him. But no one responded. So he asks, Why this dead silence from the nation?1 As he had shown in Isaiah 50:1 that Israel was divorced because of their own sin, so here he shows that Israel’s bondage was their own fault. They would have been given relief if they had not rejected the Lord’s grace and kindness.2
2 Why, when I came, was there no man; why, when I called, was there no one to answer? Is my hand shortened, that it cannot redeem? Or have I no power to deliver? Behold, by my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a desert; their fish stink for lack of water and die of thirst.