¹ tn Heb “waters of siege.”

² tn Heb “siege and stress.”

¹ tn Heb “besiege,” redundant with the noun “siege.”

⁴ tn Heb “to go before you in siege.”

¹ tn Heb “Siege ramps have come up to the city to capture it.”

¹ tn Heb “On what are you trusting that [you] are living during the siege in Jerusalem.”

² tn Heb “went up [to] Jerusalem and the city entered into siege.”

¹ tn Heb “they heap up dirt.” This is a reference to the piling up of earthen ramps in the process of laying siege to a fortified city.

³ sn The daughter surrounded by soldiers is an image of the city of Jerusalem under siege (note the address “Daughter Jerusalem” in 4:8).

⁴ sn Jerusalem is also compared to a pot in Ezek 24:3-8. The siege of the city is pictured as heating up the pot.

¹ sn According to modern reckoning that would have been July 18, 586 b.c. The siege thus lasted almost a full eighteen months.

¹ sn According to modern reckoning, that would have been July 18, 586 b.c. The siege thus lasted almost a full eighteen months.

³ tn Heb “will die by the sword.” Here “sword” stands contextually for “battle,” while “starvation” stands for death by starvation during siege.

³ tn Heb “Cut down its trees and build up a siege ramp against Jerusalem.” The referent has been moved forward from the second line for clarity.

² sn Apparently they died from starvation during the siege that preceded the final conquest of the city. See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:409.

¹ sn According to modern reckoning that would have been July 18, 586 b.c. The siege thus lasted almost a full eighteen months.

⁷ sn The Hebrew term translated covered siege tower probably does not refer to a battering ram, but to a movable protective tower, used to cover the soldiers and the siege machinery. These are frequently depicted in Neo-Assyrian bas-reliefs, such as the relief of Sennacherib’s siege of Lachish. The Neo-Assyrians used both small, hut-like shelters that could be carried by a few men, as well as larger, tower-like structures rolled on wheels to the top of siege embankments. These mantelets protected the attackers while they built the embankments and undermined the foundations of the city walls to hasten their collapse. Siege towers were equipped with machines designed to hurl stones to smash the fortifications and firebrands to start conflagrations (see A. H. Layard, Nineveh and Its Remains, 2:281-86).

² sn This refers to the tearing down of buildings within the city to strengthen the wall or to fill gaps in it which had been created by the Babylonian battering rams. For a parallel to this during the siege of Sennacherib in the time of Hezekiah, see Isa 22:10 and 2 Chr 32:5. These torn-down buildings were also used as burial mounds for those who died in the fighting or through starvation and disease during the siege. The siege prohibited them from taking the bodies outside the city for burial, and leaving them in their houses or in the streets would have defiled them.

² tn Heb “They will thrust [= pitch] tents around it.” The shepherd imagery has a surprisingly ominous tone. The beautiful pasture filled with shepherds grazing their sheep is in reality a city under siege from an attacking enemy.

³ tn Heb “They will beat down with the sword.” The term “sword” is a figure of speech (synecdoche) for military weapons in general. Siege ramps, not swords, beat down city walls; swords kill people, not city walls.