Ezekiel 4:2
New International Version
Then lay siege to it: Erect siege works against it, build a ramp up to it, set up camps against it and put battering rams around it.

New Living Translation
Show the city under siege. Build a wall around it so no one can escape. Set up the enemy camp, and surround the city with siege ramps and battering rams.

English Standard Version
And put siegeworks against it, and build a siege wall against it, and cast up a mound against it. Set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it all around.

Berean Standard Bible
Then lay siege against it: Construct a siege wall, build a ramp to it, set up camps against it, and place battering rams around it on all sides.

King James Bible
And lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mount against it; set the camp also against it, and set battering rams against it round about.

New King James Version
Lay siege against it, build a siege wall against it, and heap up a mound against it; set camps against it also, and place battering rams against it all around.

New American Standard Bible
Then lay siege against it, build a siege wall, pile up an assault ramp, set up camps, and place battering rams against it all around.

NASB 1995
“Then lay siege against it, build a siege wall, raise up a ramp, pitch camps and place battering rams against it all around.

NASB 1977
“Then lay siege against it, build a siege wall, raise up a ramp, pitch camps, and place battering rams against it all around.

Legacy Standard Bible
Then set a siege against it, build a siege wall against it, raise up a ramp against it, set up camps against it, and place battering rams against it all around.

Amplified Bible
Then lay siege against it, build a siege wall, raise a ramp against it; set up [enemy] camps and place battering rams all around it.

Christian Standard Bible
Then lay siege against it: Construct a siege wall, build a ramp, pitch military camps, and place battering rams against it on all sides.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
Then lay siege against it: construct a siege wall, build a ramp, pitch military camps, and place battering rams against it on all sides.

American Standard Version
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.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
And make a siege against it and build against it a mound and set ambush against it and make camps encamp against it, and make it battlements as a circle

Brenton Septuagint Translation
And thou shalt besiege it, and build works against it, and throw up a mound round about it, and pitch camps against it, and set up engines round about.

Contemporary English Version
Then prepare to attack the brick as if it were a real city. Build a dirt mound and a ramp up to the top and surround the brick with enemy camps. On every side put large wooden poles as though you were going to break down the gate to the city.

Douay-Rheims Bible
And lay siege against it, and build forts, and cast up a mount, and set a camp against it, and place battering rams round about it.

English Revised Version
and lay siege against it, and build forts against it, and cast up a mount against it; set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it round about.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
Set up a blockade against it, build attack walls around it, put up dirt ramps around it, have troops ready to attack it, and place battering rams all around it.

Good News Translation
Then, to represent a siege, put trenches, earthworks, camps, and battering rams all around it.

International Standard Version
You are to lay siege against it, build a rampart around it, set a bulwark against it, encircle it with a berm, set up camps against it, and place battering rams around it.

JPS Tanakh 1917
and lay siege against it, and build forts against it, and cast up a mound against it; set camps also against it, and set battering rams against it round about.

Literal Standard Version
and have placed a siege against it, and built a fortification against it, and poured out a mound against it, and placed camps against it, indeed, set battering-rams against it all around.

Majority Standard Bible
Then lay siege against it: Construct a siege wall, build a ramp to it, set up camps against it, and place battering rams around it on all sides.

New American Bible
Lay siege to it: build up siege works, raise a ramp against it, pitch camps and set up battering rams all around it.

NET Bible
Lay siege to it! Build siege works against it. Erect a siege ramp against it! Post soldiers outside it and station battering rams around it.

New Revised Standard Version
and put siegeworks against it, and build a siege wall against it, and cast up a ramp against it; set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it all around.

New Heart English Bible
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 all around.

Webster's Bible Translation
And lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mount against it; set the camp also against it, and set battering rams against it on every side.

World English Bible
Lay siege against it, build forts against it, and cast up a mound against it. Also set camps against it and plant battering rams against it all around.

Young's Literal Translation
and hast placed against it a siege, and builded against it a fortification, and poured out against it a mount, and placed against it camps, yea, set thou against it battering-rams round about.

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
A Sign of Jerusalem's Siege
1“Now you, son of man, take a brick, place it before you, and draw on it the city of Jerusalem. 2Then lay siege against it: Construct a siege wall, build a ramp to it, set up camps against it, and place battering rams around it on all sides. 3Then take an iron plate and set it up as an iron wall between yourself and the city. Turn your face toward it so that it is under siege, and besiege it. This will be a sign to the house of Israel.…

Cross References
Luke 19:43
For the days will come upon you when your enemies will barricade you and surround you and hem you in on every side.

2 Samuel 20:15
And Joab's troops came and besieged Sheba in Abel-beth-maacah and built a siege ramp against the outer rampart of the city. As all the troops with Joab were battering the wall to topple it,

Jeremiah 6:6
For this is what the LORD of Hosts says: "Cut down the trees and raise a siege ramp against Jerusalem. This city must be punished; there is nothing but oppression in her midst.

Jeremiah 33:4
For this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says about the houses of this city and the palaces of the kings of Judah that have been torn down for defense against the siege ramps and the sword:

Ezekiel 5:2
When the days of the siege have ended, you are to burn up a third of the hair inside the city; you are also to take a third and slash it with the sword all around the city; and you are to scatter a third to the wind. For I will unleash a sword behind them.

Ezekiel 21:22
In his right hand appears the portent for Jerusalem, where he is to set up battering rams, to call for the slaughter, to lift a battle cry, to direct the battering rams against the gates, to build a ramp, and to erect a siege wall.

Daniel 11:15
Then the king of the North will come, build up a siege ramp, and capture a fortified city. The forces of the South will not stand; even their best troops will not be able to resist.


Treasury of Scripture

And lay siege against it, and build a fort against it, and cast a mount against it; set the camp also against it, and set battering rams against it round about.

lay

Jeremiah 39:1,2
In the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, came Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon and all his army against Jerusalem, and they besieged it…

Jeremiah 52:4
And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and pitched against it, and built forts against it round about.

Luke 19:42-44
Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes…

battering rams.

Ezekiel 21:22
At his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem, to appoint captains, to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to appoint battering rams against the gates, to cast a mount, and to build a fort.

Jump to Previous
Attack Battering Build Building Camp Camps Cast Earthwork Erect Fort Forts High Lay Making Mound Mount Pitch Places Plant Raise Ramp Rams Round Shutting Side Siege Smashing Strong Tents Wall
Jump to Next
Attack Battering Build Building Camp Camps Cast Earthwork Erect Fort Forts High Lay Making Mound Mount Pitch Places Plant Raise Ramp Rams Round Shutting Side Siege Smashing Strong Tents Wall
Ezekiel 4
1. Under type of a siege is shown the time from the defection of Jeroboam to captivity
9. By the provision of the siege, is shown the hardness of the famine














(2) Lay siege against it.--It must have seemed at this time unlikely that Jerusalem would soon become the subject of another siege. The only power by whom such a siege could be undertaken was Babylon, Egypt having been so thoroughly defeated as to be for a long time out of the question; and Nebuchadnezzar had now, within a few years, thrice completely conquered Judaea, had carried two of its kings, one after the other, captive in chains, and had also taken into captivity 10,000 of the chief of the people, setting up as king over the remnant a creature of his own, who was yet of the royal house of Judah. A fresh siege could only be the result of a fresh rebellion, an act, under the circumstances, of simple infatuation. Yet of this infatuation Zedekiah, through the "anger of the LORD" (2Kings 24:20), was guilty, and thus the prophecy was fulfilled. The prophecy itself is undated, but must have been between the call of Ezekiel in the fifth month of the fifth year (Ezekiel 1:2) and the next date given (Ezekiel 8:1), the sixth month of the sixth year. The siege began, according to Jeremiah 52:4, in the tenth month of the ninth year, so that the prophecy preceded its fulfilment by only about four years.

Build a fort against it.--Rather, a tower. The several acts of a siege are graphically described. First the city is invested; then a tower is built, as was customary, of sufficient height to overlook the walls and thus obtain information of the doings of the besieged. Instruments for throwing stones or darts were also sometimes placed in such towers; next is "cast a mound against it," a common operation of the ancient siege (comp. Isaiah 37:33; Jeremiah 32:24), in which a sort of artificial hill was built to give the besiegers an advantage; then the camps (not merely camp) are set round the city to prevent ingress and egress; and finally "the battering rams" are brought against the walls. These last were heavy beams, headed with iron, and slung in towers, so that they could be swung against the walls with great force. They are frequently to be noticed in the representations of sieges found in the ruins of Nineveh. The practice of forming the end of the beam like a ram's head belongs to the Greeks and Romans; but the instrument itself was much older. . . .

Verse 2. - Lay siege against it, etc. The wonder would increase as the spectators looked on what followed. Either tracing the scene on the tablet, or, more probably, as ver. 3 seems to indicate, constructing a model of the scene, the prophet brings before their eyes all the familiar details of a siege, such as we see on numerous Assyrian bas-reliefs: such also as the narratives of the Old Testament bring before us. There are

(1) the forts (as in 2 Kings 25:1; Jeremiah 52:4; Ezekiel 17:17; Ezekiel 21:22; Ezekiel 26:8), or, perhaps, the wall of circumvallation, which the besiegers erected that they might carry on their operations in safety;

(2) then the mount, or mound (the English of the Authorized Version does not distinguish between the two) of earth from which they plied the bows or catapults (Jeremiah 6:6; Jeremiah 32:24; Jeremiah 33:4; Ezekiel, ut supra);

(3) the camps (plural in the Hebrew and Revised Version), or encampments, in which they were stationed in various positions found the city; . . .

Parallel Commentaries ...


Hebrew
Then lay
וְנָתַתָּ֨ה (wə·nā·ṯat·tāh)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Qal - Conjunctive perfect - second person masculine singular
Strong's 5414: To give, put, set

siege
מָצ֗וֹר (mā·ṣō·wr)
Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 4692: Something hemming in, a mound, a siege, distress, a fastness

against it:
עָלֶ֜יהָ (‘ā·le·hā)
Preposition | third person feminine singular
Strong's 5921: Above, over, upon, against

Construct
וּבָנִ֤יתָ (ū·ḇā·nî·ṯā)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Qal - Conjunctive perfect - second person masculine singular
Strong's 1129: To build

a siege wall,
דָּיֵ֔ק (dā·yêq)
Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 1785: Bulwark, siege wall

build
וְשָׁפַכְתָּ֥ (wə·šā·p̄aḵ·tā)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Qal - Conjunctive perfect - second person masculine singular
Strong's 8210: To spill forth, to expend, to sprawl out

a ramp
סֹֽלְלָ֑ה (sō·lə·lāh)
Noun - feminine singular
Strong's 5550: A military mound, rampart of besiegers

to it,
עָלֶ֖יהָ (‘ā·le·hā)
Preposition | third person feminine singular
Strong's 5921: Above, over, upon, against

set up
וְנָתַתָּ֨ה (wə·nā·ṯat·tāh)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Qal - Conjunctive perfect - second person masculine singular
Strong's 5414: To give, put, set

camps
מַחֲנ֛וֹת (ma·ḥă·nō·wṯ)
Noun - common plural
Strong's 4264: An encampment, an army

against it,
עָלֶ֧יהָ (‘ā·le·hā)
Preposition | third person feminine singular
Strong's 5921: Above, over, upon, against

and place
וְשִׂים־ (wə·śîm-)
Conjunctive waw | Verb - Qal - Imperative - masculine singular
Strong's 7760: Put -- to put, place, set

battering rams
כָּרִ֖ים (kā·rîm)
Noun - masculine plural
Strong's 3733: A ram, a, battering-ram, a meadow, a pad, camel's saddle

around it
עָלֶ֙יהָ֙ (‘ā·le·hā)
Preposition | third person feminine singular
Strong's 5921: Above, over, upon, against

on all sides.
סָבִֽיב׃ (sā·ḇîḇ)
Adverb
Strong's 5439: A circle, neighbour, environs, around


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OT Prophets: Ezekiel 4:2 And lay siege against it and build (Ezek. Eze Ezk)
Ezekiel 4:1
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