Isaiah 29:3

3 I will encamp all around you, besiege you with towers and mount siege-works against you.

Isaiah 29:3 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 29:3

And I will camp against thee round about
Or as a "ball" or "globe" ^F15; a camp all around; the Lord is said to do that which the enemy should do, because it was by his will, and according to his order, and which he would succeed and prosper, and therefore the prophecy of it is the more terrible; and it might be concluded that it would certainly be fulfilled, as it was; see ( Luke 19:43 ) ( 21:20 ) : and will lay siege against thee with a mount:
raised up for soldiers to get up upon, and cast their arrows into the city from, and scale the walls; Kimchi and Ben Melech interpret it a wooden tower. This cannot be understood of Sennacherib's siege, for he was not suffered to raise a bank against the city, nor shoot an arrow into it, ( Isaiah 37:33 ) but well agrees with the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans, as related by Josephus {p}: and I will raise forts against thee;
from whence to batter the city; the Romans had their battering rams.

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FOOTNOTES:

F15 (rwdk) "quasi pila", Piscator; "instar globi", Gataker.
F16 Joseph. de Bello Jud. l. 5. c. 7. sect. 1. & c. 12. sect. 1, 2.

Isaiah 29:3 In-Context

1 Woe to Ari'el [fireplace on God's altar, lion of God] - Ari'el, the city where David encamped! Celebrate the feasts for a few more years,

2 but then I will bring trouble to Ari'el. There will be mourning and moaning, as she becomes truly an ari'el for me.

3 I will encamp all around you, besiege you with towers and mount siege-works against you.

4 Prostrate, you will speak from the ground; your words will be stifled by the dust; your voice will sound like a ghost in the ground, your words like squeaks in the dust.

5 But your many foes will become like fine powder, the horde of tyrants like blowing chaff, and it will happen very suddenly.