Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 6:12

"and Jehovah have removed men far away, and the forsaken places be many in the midst of the land." — Isaiah 6:12 (ASV)

And the Lord have removed men far away. — The words point to the policy of deportation adopted by the Assyrian kings. From the first hour of Isaiah’s call, the thought of an exile and a return from exile was the keynote of his teaching. Of that thought, thus present in its initial form, his entire subsequent work was simply a development, as the horizon of his vision expanded, taking in an empire other than the Assyrian as the instrument of punishment.

And there be a great forsaking. — Better: great shall be the deserted space. (Isaiah 7:22–23). The words may have connected themselves in Isaiah’s thoughts with what he had heard before from the lips of Micah (Jeremiah 26:18; Micah 3:12).