This verse continues the theme of the desolation from human habitation. The "and the Lord have removed men far away" should be seen as a continuation of the "houses without man." The devastation will come, and the men will be taken away. In the Assyrian invasion of Israel that comes shortly after this time, the removal of men from Israel creates not only the literal fulfillment of this prophecy, but is the beginning of the loss of the 10 tribes. The "great forsaking" is this literal abandoning of the ancestral home. The Assyrians will carry away the men of Israel, thus they will have "forsaken" their homeland.