Lay siege against it - The prophet is represented as doing that which he portrays. The leading features of a siege are depicted. See the Jeremiah 6:6 note.
The camp - Encampments. The word denotes various hosts in various positions around the city.
Fort - It was customary in sieges to construct towers of vast height, sometimes of 20 stories, which were wheeled up to the walls to enable the besiegers to reach the battlements with their arrows; in the lower part of such a tower there was commonly a battering-ram. These towers are frequently represented in the Assyrian monuments.
Battering rams - Better than the translation in the margin. Assyrian monuments prove that these engines of war are of great antiquity. These engines seem to have been beams suspended by chains generally in moveable towers, and to have been applied against the walls in the way familiar to us from Greek and Roman history. The name “ram” was probably given to describe their mode of operation; no Assyrian monument yet discovered exhibits the ram’s head of later times.