Pharaoh with his mighty army and great company will not help him in war: Although Zedekiah sent messengers to Egypt to ask for help (see verse 15), the Egyptians will not help him fight the Babylonians. The Hebrew word for Pharaoh is rendered here as a proper name, but it is in fact a title for the king of Egypt (see the comments on Exo 1.11 in A Handbook on Exodus). Because it is a title, many translations render it “the king of Egypt” (Good News Translation, Contemporary English Version, New Century Version, Parole de Vie). The Hebrew phrase translated mighty army and great company refers to a large and powerful army. It may be rendered “large army with numerous troops” (similarly New Jewish Publication Society’s Tanakh).

When mounds are cast up and siege walls built describes the war with the Babylonians. They will try to capture the city of Jerusalem by piling up dirt against the wall as a ramp so that the soldiers can get over the wall without climbing vertically up it, and by building earth or wooden towers outside the wall so that the soldiers can shoot arrows over the wall into the city. This method of fighting was called a siege. For mounds are cast up and siege walls built, see the comments on 4.2.

To cut off many lives means to kill many people in the city.

Here is one possible model for this verse:

• When the Babylonians build mounds of dirt and wooden towers that will help them attack the city in order to kill many people in the city, the king of Egypt will not bring his large army with many soldiers to help that king in Jerusalem fight against the Babylonians.

With this model it will be helpful to have a footnote explaining more about the mounds of dirt and wooden towers. But some translators put more of that information in the translation itself, as in the model below.

Many translators may find it easier to combine and rearrange verses 16 and 17 in a more logical way to refer to the war in which the Egyptians did not help Zedekiah before mentioning his exile and death in Babylon. A model for such a rearrangement of these two verses is:

• Just as I the Lord Yahweh am alive, what I’m telling you will happen for sure. The king of Babylonia has appointed a man as king of Judah. But the king of Judah will not take seriously the threats of the king of Babylonia to punish him if he breaks their agreement. He will break the agreement that the king of Babylonia has made with him. As a result, the Babylonians will come to Jerusalem and try to capture it. They will pile up dirt against its walls as a ramp to help them climb over the walls. They will build high wooden towers outside the walls so that their soldiers can shoot arrows over the wall into the city to kill many people. Even though the king of Judah will ask the king of Egypt to send a large and powerful army to help him fight against the Babylonians, the king of Egypt will not help him. So the Babylonians will capture the king of Judah and take him to Babylon, the city of their king. There the king of Judah will die.

Quoted with permission from Gross, Carl & Stine, Philip C. A Handbook on Ezekiel. (UBS Helps for Translators). Miami: UBS, 2016. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .