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

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.

Draw the figure of a siege about the city; raise a tower and bulwarks which may annoy the besieged, and defend the besiegers, from which may be shot either darts against men, or mighty stones against the walls and towers of the city. Cast a mount; which made large, high, and strong, and near as they can, might thence by help of galleries get over the walls and enter the city. Lay out the ground also for the army of the Chaldeans to pitch their tents in, and to form their camp. Rams; the Chaldee paraphrast understands the captains and chief leaders among the soldiers, but it is better understood of those engines wherewith besiegers did batter the walls and towers of a besieged city; an engine of great use in days of old among all warlike nations, invented, say some, in the siege of Troy.

Ezekiel 4:2 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.Ver. 2. And lay siege against it.] This to carnal reason seemeth childish and ridiculous; not unlike the practice of boys that make forts of snow; or of the Papists’ St Francis, who made him a wife and children of snow; fair, but soon fading comforts; or of his disciple Massaeus, who is much magnified, because at his master’ s command he did - not Diogenes-like, tumble his tub, but - himself tumble up and down as a little one, in reference to that of our Saviour, "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." But it must be considered, that what the prophet did here, he did by the word and command of the most wise God. This made the sacrifices of old, and doth make the sacraments still, to be reverend and tremendous; because holy and reverend is his name who instituted them. It cannot be said so of Popish ceremonies, men’ s inventions; they have not God’ s image or inscription, and are therefore frivolous and fruitless, worthily cast out of our churches. Sedulius., lib. iii. cap. 2.

(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” (2 Kings 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. Battering rams] כרים carim. This is the earliest account we have of this military engine. It was a long beam with a head of brass, like the head and horns of a ram, whence its name. It was hung by chains or ropes, between two beams, or three legs, so that it could admit of being drawn backward and forward some yards. Several stout men, by means of ropes, pulled it as far back as it could go, and then, suddenly letting it loose, it struck with great force against the wall which it was intended to batter and bring down. This machine was not known in the time of Homer, as in the siege of Troy there is not the slightest mention of such. And the first notice we have of it is here, where we see that it was employed by Nebuchadnezzar in the siege of Jerusalem, A.M. 3416. It was afterwards used by the Carthaginians at the siege of Gades, as Vitruvius notes, lib. x. c. 19, in which he gives a circumstantial account of the invention, fabrication, use, and improvement of this machine. It was for the want of a machine of this kind, that the ancient sieges lasted so long; they had nothing with which to beat down or undermine the walls.

2. a fort against it] The word is always used in the sing., though sometimes rightly rendered forts (2 Kings 25:1), as the term is the name of a class of offensive siege works. The work was probably a species of tower, of which a number might be erected “round about” the walls (2 Kings 25:1), and was used as a station for archers, or to discharge projectiles from (cf. LXX. ch. Ezekiel 17:17). Towers of this kind, manned by archers are seen on the Assyrian bas-reliefs. Layard, Nin. and Bab. p. 149. cast a mount] The “mount” or mound was an embankment raised till the besiegers standing on it were on a level with the top of the wall and able to command the streets of the city, cf. Lamentations 4:18. See Isaiah 37:33; Jeremiah 6:6; Jeremiah 32:24. set the camp] set camps, detachments of soldiery. battering rams] These were beams of wood with a head of iron, suspended by chains or ropes from a cross plank, and swung with great force by a number of men against the walls to batter them down. The term “round about” indicates that they were applied to different parts of the wall, perhaps where it might be thought weakest. It is not probable that the siege works were also engraved upon the brick. The latter rather by its elevation above the ground represented the city, and the siege works would be upon the ground, if we are to suppose them anywhere. But as the whole is a creation of the imagination it may be doubtful if the prophet was so precise or consistent as to put to himself the question where the siege works were placed.

Lay siege against it - The prophet is represented as doing that which he portrays. The leading features of a siege are depicted. See the Jeremiah 6:6 note. The camp - Encampments.

2. Lay siege… build a fort… cast a mount — All of these ordinary acts of a besieging army are so acted out in the picture-sermon of the dumb prophet that his hearers are made to understand the