He will surely violently turn and toss thee [like] a ball into a large country: there shalt thou die, and there the chariots of thy glory [shall be] the shame of thy lord's house.
Ver. 18. He will surely turn and toss thee.] Turn thee like a bowl, and toss thee like a ball. How and when this was fulfilled the Scripture relateth not. But the Talmudists tell us that Shebna, revolting to Sennacherib, was by him - after the execution done by God's angel upon his forces - carried to Nineveh, there tied to a horse tail, and drawn through briers and brambles till he died.
There shalt thou die.] Ingloria vita recedet. Spotswood, Archbishop of St Andrews, who had discouraged, and by degrees extirpated, many faithful ministers of Scotland, thought it seasonable, A.D. 1639, to repair into England, where he died; and so was fulfilled upon him the prediction of Mr Walsh, a famous Scottish minister, who, in a letter to the bishop, written long before, told him he should die an outcast. a
And there the chariots of thy glory.] Thy stately chariots, wherein thou delightest to be hurried up and down, these shall also die or cease; O domus regiae dedecus! O optimi regis opprobrium! - for so some read the words by an apostrophe to Shebna - O thou that art such a blur to thy good master, and such a disgrace to his house. b Shebna affected to bear as great a deportment almost as the king himself did, sed passus est manes suos, but he came to an ill end. So did the Duke of Guise in France; and so did here Cardinal Wolsey, Sir Thomas Moore, Sir Francis Bacon, &c.
a Myst. of Iniq., p. 15.
b O dedecus domus domini!