And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he, and all his host, against Jerusalem, and pitched against it; and they built forts against it round about. (2 Kings 25:1)
See Jer. 39:1; 52:4. The ninth year of Zedekiah, by Jewish fall-to-fall reckoning, was 589/88 B.C. The tenth month of the Jewish year corresponds roughly to our January. On the day the siege of Jerusalem began, the Lord revealed this fact to Ezekiel in Babylonia (Eze. 24:1-14).
The tenth of the tenth month in 588 B.C. can be dated with reasonable accuracy to Jan. 15 by the Babylonian calendar, though the Jewish reckoning of this month may have differed (see p. 98; also p. 120, and the last entry on p. 123).
Against Jerusalem.
Not only was Jerusalem besieged, but parts of the army were sent against “all the cities of Judah that were left” (Jer. 34:7).
Forts.
Siegeworks, including sloping ramparts of earth from which battering-rams could attack the upper and weaker portions of the walls, and movable towers, to bring the attackers on a level with the defenders on the city walls.