2 Samuel 20:15

Lutherbibel

und kamen und belagerten ihn zu Abel-Beth-Maacha und schütteten einen Wall gegen die Stadt hin, daß er bis an die Vormauer langte; und alles Volk, das mit Joab war, stürmte und wollte die Mauer niederwerfen.

Parallel Translations

Schlachter Bibel (1951)
Jene aber kamen und belagerten ihn zu Abel-Beth-Maacha, und sie warfen einen Wall um die Stadt bis an die Mauern hin. Und alles Volk, das mit Joab war, stürmte und wollte die Mauer niederwerfen.

Elberfelder Bibel (1905)
Und sie kamen und belagerten ihn in Abel-Beth-Maaka, und sie schütteten einen Wall gegen die Stadt auf, so daß derselbe an der Vormauer stand; und alles Volk, das mit Joab war, unterwühlte die Mauer, um sie zu stürzen.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

cast up: 2 Kings 19:32, Jeremiah 32:24, Jeremiah 33:4, Luke 19:43

a bank: So LXX generally render solelah, by נסןףקשלב or קשלב; which latter is described by Potter as "a mount, which was raised so high as to equal, if not exceed, the top of the besieged walls. The sides were walled in with bricks or stones, or secured with strong rafters; the fore part only, being by degrees to be moved near the walls, remained bare."

it stood in the trench: or, it stood against the outmost wall

battered: etc. Heb. marred to throw down

Reciprocal: 1 Kings 15:20 - Dan 2 Kings 15:29 - Ijon Ecclesiastes 9:14 - There was Ezekiel 26:8 - he shall make

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And they came and besieged him in Abel of Bethmaachah,.... That is, Joab and Abishai, with the forces under them, who pursued him hither:

and they cast up a bank against the city; which some understand of a warlike machine or engine, with which stones were cast; but it rather seems to be a bank of earth thrown up, for the better working of such engines to more advantage against the city, by throwing from thence darts into the city, or stones against the walls of it, to batter it down; such banks were used in sieges, as that Caesar's soldiers raised in twenty five days, which was three hundred thirty feet broad, and eighty feet high z; Kimchi interprets this of filling up the ditches round about the city with dust and earth, and so making it level, whereby they could come the more easily to the walls and batter them, or scale them, and take the city by storm:

and it stood in the trench; the army under Joab stood where the trench round the city had been, now filled up:

and all the people that [were] with Joab battered the wall to throw it down; with their engines, or whatever battering instruments they had; so, often, as Hesiod a says, a whole city suffers for one bad man.

z Caesar. Comment. l. 7. c. 24. a Opera & Dies, l. 1. ver. 236.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Cast up a bank - See the marginal references. The throwing up of mounds against the walls of besieged places by the besiegers is well illustrated in the Assyrian sculptures.

The trench - The “pomoerium,” or fortified space outside the wall. When the mound was planted in the pomoerium the battering engines were able to approach close to the wall to make a breach.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse 2 Samuel 20:15. They cast up a bank against the city — The word סללה solelah, which we render bank, means, most probably, a battering engine of some kind, or a tower overlooking the walls, on which archers and slingers could stand and annoy the inhabitants, while others of the besiegers could proceed to sap the walls. That it cannot be a bank that stood in the trench, is evident from the circumstance thus expressed.