Behold, the LORD will carry thee away with a mighty captivity, and will surely cover thee.
The chapter containing the verse is directed against Jerusalem, unlike the surrounding chapters that address foreign nations. It stands among prophecies in Isaiah 20, 21, and 22 concerning Assyria, the wilderness of the South, Idumea, and Israel. The verse warns that the Lord will forcibly carry away the one addressed — Zion — into captivity to a humiliating end. That carrying away was fulfilled in Israel's visible overthrow and removal to Babylon for seventy years after its spiritual unfaithfulness and adoption of Babylonian practices. The captivity made plain that the people had become one with Babylon and that God had departed from them.
The chapter containing the verse is directed against Jerusalem, unlike the surrounding chapters that address foreign nations. It stands among prophecies in Isaiah 20, 21, and 22 concerning Assyria, the wilderness of the South, Idumea, and Israel. The verse warns that the Lord will forcibly carry away the one addressed — Zion — into captivity to a humiliating end. That carrying away was fulfilled in Israel's visible overthrow and removal to Babylon for seventy years after its spiritual unfaithfulness and adoption of Babylonian practices. The captivity made plain that the people had become one with Babylon and that God had departed from them.