Behold, the Lord will carry thee away with a mighty captivity,.... Or with the captivity of a man; so the Targum, of a mighty man, Sennacherib king of Assyria; who, as the Jews say z, when he went from Jerusalem, upon the rumour of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia coming against him, carried away Shebna and his company, as with an inundation: or as a man is carried captive, whose captivity is harder, and more severe and cruel, than a woman's, as the Rabbins a observe; a woman finding more mercy in captivity usually than a man does. Some of the Jewish writers render the word "geber" a cock, as they do elsewhere; and gloss it, as a cock is carried away, and goes from place to place b; and so the Vulgate Latin version,
"behold, the Lord shall cause thee to be carried away, as a cock is carried away;''
but it seems best, with Aben Ezra and Kimchi, to read the word "man" in the vocative case; the Lord will carry thee away, "O man", O mighty man c; as mighty a man as thou art in office, in power, in riches, God shall carry thee away with the greatest ease imaginable:
and will surely cover thee: or, "in covering cover thee"; with confusion, as the Targum. Jarchi says the word has the signification of flying; and so interprets it, he shall cause thee to fly like a bird into captivity; that is, very speedily and swiftly. The Rabbins gather from hence that Shebna was struck with leprosy, because the leper was obliged to put a covering upon his upper lip; and this sense is embraced by Grotius; but the allusion seems to be to persons in disgrace, or condemned to die, whose faces used to be covered, Esther 7:8.
z Seder Olam Rabba, c. 23. p. 64. a T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 26. 2. b Jarchi in loc. Vajikra Rabba, sect. 5. fol. 150. 2. c גבר "O vir poteus", Grotius; "O tu heros", Tigurine version.