Battering-Ram

The battering-ram appears in scripture as a siege weapon — set against city walls and gates as part of the standard apparatus of an investment, alongside mounds, forts, and camps. Three passages give it explicit notice; a fourth describes the same machinery under another name.

Joab at Abel of Beth-maacah

The earliest siege-notice gathered under this heading is Joab's pursuit of Sheba into the fortified city of Abel:

"And they came and besieged him in Abel of Beth-maacah, and they cast up a mound against the city, and it stood against the rampart; and all the people who were with Joab battered the wall, to throw it down." (2Sa 20:15).

The verb describes the work — battering the wall to throw it down — without naming the engine.

In Ezekiel's siege-symbols

Ezekiel's prophetic enactment against Jerusalem builds the full siege apparatus in miniature, with the battering-rams ringed around it:

"and lay siege against it, and build forts against it, and cast up a mound against it; set camps also against it, and plant battering rams against it round about." (Eze 4:2).

Later, in the oracle of Nebuchadnezzar's divination, the battering-rams are aimed twice — once at the breach, once at the gates:

"In his right hand was the reading [for] Jerusalem, to set battering rams, to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to set battering rams against the gates, to cast up mounds, to build forts." (Eze 21:22).

The same prophet's oracle against Tyre describes the siege-engines under a parallel term, paired with axes against the towers:

"And he will set his battering engines against your walls, and with his axes he will break down your towers." (Eze 26:9).

In each notice the ram is one piece of a larger siege-set: mound, fort, camp, axe, voice — the mechanical and human means by which a wall is brought down.