Ezekiel 4:2

2 et ordinabis adversus eam obsidionem et aedificabis munitiones et conportabis aggerem et dabis contra eam castra et pones arietes in gyro

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 et tu fili hominis sume tibi laterem et pones eum coram te et describes in eo civitatem Hierusalem
2 et ordinabis adversus eam obsidionem et aedificabis munitiones et conportabis aggerem et dabis contra eam castra et pones arietes in gyro
3 et tu sume tibi sartaginem ferream et pones eam murum ferreum inter te et inter civitatem et obfirmabis faciem tuam ad eam et erit in obsidionem et circumdabis eam signum est domui Israhel
4 et tu dormies super latus tuum sinistrum et pones iniquitates domus Israhel super eo numero dierum quibus dormies super illud et adsumes iniquitatem eorum
5 ego autem dedi tibi annos iniquitatis eorum numero dierum trecentos et nonaginta dies et portabis iniquitatem domus Israhel
The Latin Vulgate is in the public domain.