Eze 4:1-3 | JFB | STEP | 1. tile-- a sun-dried brick, such as are found in Babylon, covered with cuneiform inscriptions, often two feet long and one foot broad.

‏ Ezekiel 4:1-3

CHAPTER 4 Eze 4:1-17. Symbolical Vision of the Siege and the Iniquity-bearing.

1. tile--a sun-dried brick, such as are found in Babylon, covered with cuneiform inscriptions, often two feet long and one foot broad.

2. fort--rather, "watch-tower" (Jr 52:4) wherein the besiegers could watch the movements of the besieged [Gesenius]. A wall of circumvallation [Septuagint and Rosenmuller]. A kind of battering-ram [Maurer]. The first view is best.

a mount--wherewith the Chaldeans could be defended from missiles.

battering-rams--literally, "through-borers." In Eze 21:22 the same Hebrew is translated "captains."

3. iron pan--the divine decree as to the Chaldean army investing the city.

set it for a wall of iron between thee and the city--Ezekiel, in the person of God, represents the wall of separation between him and the people as one of iron: and the Chaldean investing army. His instrument of separating them from him, as one impossible to burst through.

set ... face against it--inexorably (Psa 34:16). The exiles envied their brethren remaining in Jerusalem, but exile is better than the straitness of a siege.