Ezekiel 4:2

2 Prepare the siege: Build a wall, construct ramps, set up army camps, and place battering rams all around.

Ezekiel 4:2 Meaning and Commentary

Ezekiel 4:2

And lay siege against it
In his own person, as in ( Ezekiel 4:3 ) ; or draw the form of a siege, or figure of an army besieging a city; or rather of the instruments and means used in a siege, as follows: and build a fort against it:
Kimchi interprets it a wooden tower, built over against the city, to subdue it; Jarchi takes it to be an instrument by which stones were cast into the city; and so the Arabic version renders it, "machines to cast stones"; the Targum, a fortress; so Nebuchadnezzar in reality did what was here only done in type, ( 2 Kings 25:1 ) ; where the same word is used as here: and cast a mount about it;
a heap of earth cast up, in order to look into the city, cast in darts, and mount the walls; what the French call "bastion", as Jarchi observes: set the camp also against it;
place the army in their tents about it: and set [battering] rams against it round about;
a warlike instrument, that had an iron head, and horns like a ram, with which in a siege the walls of a city were battered and beaten down. Jarchi, Kimchi, and Ben Melech, interpret the word of princes and generals of the army, who watched at the several corners of the city, that none might go in and out; so the Targum seems to understand it F2. The Arabic version is, "mounts to cast darts"; (See Gill on Ezekiel 21:22).


FOOTNOTES:

F2 So R. Sol. Urbin. Ohel Moed, fol. 50. 9.

Ezekiel 4:2 In-Context

1 You, human one, take a brick. Put it in front of you and draw the city of Jerusalem on it.
2 Prepare the siege: Build a wall, construct ramps, set up army camps, and place battering rams all around.
3 Take an iron plate and set it up as an iron wall between you and the city. Face it directly. When it is under siege like this, press hard against it. This is a sign for the house of Israel.
4 Now, lie on your left side, and set the guilt of the house of Israel on it. For the length of time that you lie on your side, you will bear their punishment.
5 I appoint to you three hundred ninety days, one day for each year of their guilt. So you will bear the punishment of the house of Israel.
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