*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Madmenah is removed. In exaggerated language he describes that city to have been shaken to such a degree, as if it had been removed to another place. This relates to the disorderly movements of a people in flight; as if he had said that the inhabitants of that city were thrown into as great a commotion as if the city had been razed to its foundations. The inhabitants of Gebim have gathered themselves. This may be explained to mean that they are so terrified that they crowd together in a body. Others understand by it, that they rush out in a disorderly manner, as if there were not room for a free passage.
Madmenah - This city is mentioned nowhere else. The city of Madmanna, or Medemene, mentioned in Joshua 15:31, was in the bounds of the tribe of Simeon, and was far south, toward Gaza. It cannot be the place intended here.
Is removed - Or, the inhabitants have fled from fear; see Isaiah 10:29.
Gebim - This place is unknown. It is nowhere else mentioned.
Gather themselves to flee - A description of the alarm prevailing at the approach of Sennacherib.
Madmenah is removed,.... That is, the inhabitants of it, who removed from thence upon hearing that the Assyrian army had invaded the land, and was coming up to Jerusalem. There was a place called Madmannah, which lay in the southern part of the tribe of Judah, Joshua 15:31 which, Jerom (i) says, was then called Memris, and was near the city of Gaza; but whether the same with this is not certain.
The inhabitants of Gebim gather themselves to flee; of this place we have no account any where. Hillerus (k) thinks the whole name of the city was Joshebehaggebim, which we render "the inhabitants of Gebim"; and supposes it had its name from the ditches that were in it, or about it.
(i) De Iocis Hebraicis, fol. 93. E. (k) Onomast. Sacr. p. 310.
Madmenah--not the city in Simeon (Joshua 15:31), but a village near Jerusalem.
removed--fled from fear.
gather themselves to flee--"put their goods in a place of safety" [MAURER].
*More commentary available at chapter level.