Word study
Siege
6 Hebrew words behind this English word
The original-language words that the Berean Standard Bible translates with “siege”. English often uses one word where Hebrew or Greek has several, each with its own shade of meaning. Under each word are verses where it is translated this way; choose the word itself for its full study: every verse, how else it is translated, the forms it takes and what the dictionaries say.
At a glance
How often each original word is translated “siege” or one of its forms.
Compare the Hebrew words side by side
Hebrew and Aramaic words (Old Testament)
- מָצוֹר mâtsôrsiege-enclosure, siege, entrenchmenttranslated this way 18 times of its 25 uses · Strong’s H4692Noun · Translated: siege 17, fortified 2Full study and all 25 verses →
Deuteronomy 20:20 But you may destroy the trees that you know do not produce fruit. Use them to build siege works against the city that is waging war against you, until it falls.
2 Kings 24:10 At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched up to Jerusalem, and the city came under siege.
- סֹלְלָה sôlelâhmoundtranslated this way 7 times of its 11 uses · Strong’s H5550Noun · Translated: siege ramp 5, siege ramps 2, ramp 2, ramps 1Full study and all 11 verses →
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,
2 Kings 19:32 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.
- דָּיֵק dâyêqbulwark, siege-walltranslated this way 6 times of its 6 uses · Strong’s H1785Noun · Translated: siege wall 4, siege walls 1, siege works 1Full study and all 6 verses →
2 Kings 25:1 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.
Jeremiah 52:4 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.
- חָנָה chânâhdecline, bend down, encamptranslated this way 5 times of its 141 uses · Strong’s H2583Verb · Translated: camped 90, camp 18, encamped 11, laid siege 4Full study and all 135 verses →
Joshua 10:31 And Joshua and all Israel with him moved on from Libnah to Lachish. They laid siege to it and fought against it.
1 Samuel 11:1 Then Nahash the Ammonite came up and laid siege to Jabesh-gilead. All the men of Jabesh said to him, “Make a treaty with us, and we will serve you.”
- צוּר tsûrconfine, bind, besiegetranslated this way 4 times of its 38 uses · Strong’s H6696Verb · Translated: besieged 10, besiege 7, besieging 4, lay siege 3Full study and all 38 verses →
Deuteronomy 20:12 But if they refuse to make peace with you and wage war against you, lay siege to that city.
Isaiah 21:2 A dire vision is declared to me: “The traitor still betrays, and the destroyer still destroys. Go up, O Elam! Lay siege, O Media! I will put an end to all her groaning.”
- מָצוֹד mâtsôdsiege-workstranslated this way 2 times of its 7 uses · Strong’s H4685Noun · Translated: drawn his net 1, plunder 1, snare 1, net 1Full study and all 7 verses →
Ecclesiastes 9:14 There was a small city with few men. A mighty king came against it, surrounded it, and built large siege ramps against it.
Isaiah 29:7 All the many nations going out to battle against Ariel— even all who war against her, laying siege and attacking her— will be like a dream, like a vision in the night,
How to study a word well
- Start from the verse, not the dictionary. Find which Hebrew or Greek word stands in the verse you are studying. One English word often translates several different original words.
- Read every place the word is used. A word means what its writers used it to mean. The list of verses and the count by book show its range, and who uses it most.
- Look at how it is translated. A word rendered five different ways has a wider meaning than any one English word can carry.
- Notice the form. A command is not a statement, and a passive verb is something done to the subject. The form in your verse is part of the meaning.
- See what it keeps company with. The words that appear beside it again and again show how the Bible itself connects ideas.
- Then read the dictionaries. They give the considered view of scholars, with their evidence.
- Come back to the verse. Context decides. A word does not carry every one of its meanings into every verse, and where a word came from does not settle what it means in a sentence written centuries later.
What the Bible says about siege: passages by topic →
Scripture text and translation counts: Berean Standard Bible. Full entry: Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906, public domain), in the digital edition Brown-Driver-Briggs Enhanced by unfoldingWord (Joel Ruark, J. de Joode), based on data by Eliran Wong and Stephen Ku; its additions are used under CC BY 4.0. Strong’s Hebrew Dictionary: Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible Project, CC BY 4.0. Hebrew-to-English verse numbering: original work of the Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible available at https://github.com/openscriptures/morphhb, CC BY 4.0. We reformatted the data, linked the references to this site’s Bible text and left out words in other scripts that the source holds only as images. These are historical reference works; an entry gives its authors’ view, and a word’s meaning in any verse depends on how it is used there.