John Gill Commentary Isaiah 5:13

"Therefore my people are gone into captivity for lack of knowledge; and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude are parched with thirst." — Isaiah 5:13 (ASV)

Therefore my people are gone into captivity
Or rather, as Kimchi explains it, "shall go into captivity"; the past for the future; for this cannot be understood even of the captivity of the ten tribes, for they were not carried captive until the sixth year of Hezekiah's reign, (2 Kings 17:6) (18:1) whereas this prophecy was delivered out many years before, even in the time of Uzziah, as is manifest from the following chapter, (Isaiah 6:1) and much less it cannot design the captivity of Judah, but respects the captivity by the Romans, in future time.

Because [they have] no knowledge ;
of the work of the Lord, and the operations of his hands; the Septuagint and Arabic versions render it, "because they knew not the Lord", the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, the true Messiah; they knew not his person, office, grace, and Gospel; they did not own and acknowledge him, but despised and rejected him; their ignorance was affected and voluntary; they had the means of knowledge, but did not make use of them; they would not know him, they would not attend to the strong and clear evidence of his being the Messiah, which prophecies, miracles, and his doctrines, gave of him; the things belonging to their peace they knew not, these were righteously hid from them, and hence destruction came upon them, (Luke 19:42–44).

The words may be rendered in connection with the former, "therefore my people shall go into captivity without knowledge"^F2, unawares, unthought of, and unexpected; and the Jews, to the last; did not think their city would be taken, but that in some way of other salvation and deliverance would be wrought for them:

and their honourable men [are] famished, and their multitude dried
up with thirst ;
or "shall be"; this is expressive of a famine of bread and water, which all, both high and low, prince and people, should be affected with; see (Isaiah 3:1) and was true not only when Jerusalem was besieged by the Chaldeans, (Jeremiah 52:6) (Lamentations 4:4Lamentations 4:5Lamentations 4:8–10) (Jeremiah 5:10) but when it was besieged by the Romans, in which the rich suffered as well as the poor; and was so great, that even women ate their own children, as Josephus ^F3 relates: this is threatened as a punishment of their rioting and drunkenness, (Isaiah 5:11Isaiah 5:12) .

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FOOTNOTES:

• F2: (ted ylbm yme hlg Nkl) "idcirco exsulat populus meus absque scientia", Cocceius; so Montanus.
• F3: De Bello Jud. l. 5. c. 10. sect. 2. 3. & 12. 3. & 6. 3, sect. 3.