Isaiah 29:3

3 And like David I will encamp against you; I will besiege you with towers and raise 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 the festivals run their round.
2 Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be moaning and lamentation, and Jerusalem shall be to me like an Ariel.
3 And like David I will encamp against you; I will besiege you with towers and raise siegeworks against you.
4 Then deep from the earth you shall speak, from low in the dust your words shall come; your voice shall come from the ground like the voice of a ghost, and your speech shall whisper out of the dust.
5 But the multitude of your foes shall be like small dust, and the multitude of tyrants like flying chaff. And in an instant, suddenly,

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. Gk: Meaning of Heb uncertain
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.