Isaiah 29:3

3 And I will encamp {in a circle} against you, and I will lay siege to you [with] towers and I will raise up siegeworks 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.


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 Ah! Ariel, Ariel, [the] city [where] David encamped! Add year to year, let festivals recur.
2 Yet I will inflict Ariel, and there shall be mourning and lamentation, and it shall be to me like an altar hearth.
3 And I will encamp {in a circle} against you, and I will lay siege to you [with] towers and I will raise up siegeworks against you.
4 Then you shall be low; you shall speak from [the] earth, and your words will be low, from dust. And your voice will be from [the] earth, like a ghost, and your word will whisper from [the] dust.
5 But the multitude of your strangers shall be like fine dust, and [the] multitude of tyrants like chaff that passes by. And it will happen [in] an instant, suddenly.

Footnotes 2

  • [a]. The Hebrew text literally reads "like the ball"; the LXX supports an emendation to "David"
  • [b]. Hebrew "tower"
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