John Gill Commentary Ezekiel 4:2

"and lay siege against it, and build forts against it, and cast up a mound against it; set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it round about." — Ezekiel 4:2 (ASV)

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).

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FOOTNOTES:

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