Ezekiel 24:1,2 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Again, in the ninth year Namely, of Jehoiachin's captivity, and of Zedekiah's reign; the word of the Lord came unto me Namely, in Chaldea, where the prophet now was, and where, as the words here evidently imply, God gave him notice, though many hundreds of miles distant from Jerusalem, of Nebuchadnezzar's beginning to lay siege to that city, just at the time when he began to do it. Saying, The king of Babylon set himself against Jerusalem Hebrew, סמךְ אל ירושׁלים, hath set himself, or, as Buxtorf renders it, accedit, vel appropinquat, comes, or approaches, to Jerusalem, בעצם היום הזה, this self-same day Namely, this day that I now speak to thee. Write thee the name of the day, &c. Make a memorial of the day, and of my having this day informed thee of this great event; and signify it to the people, that when they shall receive intelligence from Judea of the siege having been begun this day, according to thy information, it may be a confirmation of the truth of thy mission, and of the certainty of the fulfilment of all thy predictions. This was about two years before the taking of Jerusalem: see 2 Kings 25:1; Jeremiah 39:1; and Jeremiah 52:4.