Topic
Siege
Passages from across the Bible
Passages on this topic
From Nave’s Topical Bible (1896), a historical reference index. The groupings are Nave’s; the verses are shown in the text used across this site.
An offer of peace must be made to the city before beginning a
- Deuteronomy 20:10–12 When you approach a city to fight against it, you are to make an offer of peace. If they accept your offer of peace and open their gates, all the people there will become forced laborers to serve you. But if they refuse to make peace with you and wage war against you, lay siege to that city.
Conducted by erecting embankments parallel to the walls of the besieged city
- Deuteronomy 20:19–20 When you lay siege to a city for an extended time while fighting against it to capture it, you must not destroy its trees by putting an axe to them, because you can eat their fruit. You must not cut them down. Are the trees of the field human, that you should besiege them? But you may destroy the t…
- Isaiah 29:3 I will camp in a circle around you; I will besiege you with towers and set up siege works against you.
- Isaiah 37:33 So this is what the LORD says about the king of Assyria: ‘He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow into it. He will not come before it with a shield or build up a siege ramp against it.
Battering-rams used in
See Battering-Rams
Distress of the inhabitants during a
- 2 Kings 6:24–29 Some time later, Ben-hadad king of Aram assembled his entire army and marched up to besiege Samaria. So there was a great famine in Samaria. Indeed, they besieged the city so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter cab of dove’s dung sold for five shekels of silve…
- 2 Kings 25:3 By the ninth day of the fourth month, the famine in the city was so severe that the people of the land had no food.
- Isaiah 9:20 They carve out what is on the right, but they are still hungry; they eat what is on the left, but they are still not satisfied. Each one devours the flesh of his own offspring.
- Isaiah 36:12 But the Rabshakeh replied, “Has my master sent me to speak these words only to you and your master, and not to the men sitting on the wall, who are destined with you to eat their own dung and drink their own urine?”
- Jeremiah 19:9 I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh in the siege and distress inflicted on them by their enemies who seek their lives.’
Cannibalism during a
- 2 Kings 6:28–29 Then the king asked her, “What is the matter?” And she answered, “This woman said to me, ‘Give up your son, that we may eat him, and tomorrow we will eat my son.’ So we boiled my son and ate him, and the next day I said to her, ‘Give up your son, that we may eat him.’ But she had hidden her son.”
Instances of
Jericho
- Joshua 6 Now Jericho was tightly shut up because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in. And the LORD said to Joshua, “Behold, I have delivered Jericho into your hand, along with its king and its mighty men of valor. March around the city with all the men of war, circling the city one time. D… (whole chapter)
Rabbah
- 2 Samuel 11:1 In the spring, at the time when kings march out to war, David sent out Joab and his servants with the whole army of Israel. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah, but David remained in Jerusalem.
Abel
- 2 Samuel 20:15 And Joab’s troops came and besieged Sheba in Abel-beth-maacah and built a siege ramp against the outer rampart of the city. As all the troops with Joab were battering the wall to topple it,
Gibbethon
- 1 Kings 15:27 Then Baasha son of Ahijah of the house of Issachar conspired against Nadab, and Baasha struck him down at Gibbethon of the Philistines while Nadab and all Israel were besieging the city.
Tirzah
- 1 Kings 16:17 Then Omri and all the Israelites marched up from Gibbethon and besieged Tirzah.
Jerusalem
By the sons of Judah
- Judges 1:8 Then the men of Judah fought against Jerusalem and captured it. They put the city to the sword and set it on fire.
By David
- 2 Samuel 5:6 Now the king and his men marched to Jerusalem against the Jebusites who inhabited the land. The Jebusites said to David: “You will never get in here. Even the blind and lame can repel you.” For they thought, “David cannot get in here.”
- 2 Samuel 5:9 So David took up residence in the fortress and called it the City of David. He built it up all the way around, from the supporting terraces inward.
By Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, son of Remaliah, king of Israel
- 2 Kings 16:5 Then Rezin king of Aram and Pekah son of Remaliah king of Israel came up to wage war against Jerusalem. They besieged Ahaz but could not overcome him.
By Nebuchadnezzar
- 2 Kings 24:10–11 At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched up to Jerusalem, and the city came under siege. And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to the city while his servants were besieging it.
- Daniel 1:1 In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.
- 2 Kings 25:1–3 So in the ninth year of Zedekiah’s reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against Jerusalem with his entire army. They encamped outside the city and built a siege wall all around it. And the city was kept under siege until King Zedekiah’s eleventh year. B…
- Jeremiah 52 Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah. And Zedekiah did evil in the sight of the LORD, just as Jehoiakim had done. For because of the anger of the LORD, all this happen… (whole chapter)
By Sennacherib
- 2 Chronicles 32:1–23 After all these acts of faithfulness, Sennacherib king of Assyria came and invaded Judah. He laid siege to the fortified cities, intending to conquer them for himself. When Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib had come to make war against Jerusalem, he consulted with his leaders and mighty men about stopp…
Samaria
- 1 Kings 20:1 Now Ben-hadad king of Aram assembled his entire army. Accompanied by thirty-two kings with their horses and chariots, he marched up, besieged Samaria, and waged war against it.
- 2 Kings 6:24 Some time later, Ben-hadad king of Aram assembled his entire army and marched up to besiege Samaria.
- 2 Kings 17:5 Then the king of Assyria invaded the whole land, marched up to Samaria, and besieged it for three years.
- 2 Kings 18:9–11 In the fourth year of Hezekiah’s reign, which was the seventh year of the reign of Hoshea son of Elah over Israel, Shalmaneser king of Assyria marched against Samaria and besieged it. And at the end of three years, the Assyrians captured it. So Samaria was captured in the sixth year of Hezekiah, wh…
Word study: the Hebrew and Greek words behind “siege” →
Scripture text: Berean Standard Bible.