Ezekiel 17:17 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Let his army be made up of ever so many well-disciplined soldiers, if as many as the Egyptian can vainly promise, or the Jews more vainly hope. Great company possibly may refer to the multitudes which usually attended the march of armies, or else it is a doubling the thing in doubled words. Make for him: if Zedekiah be the person, as our version carrieth it, it foretells the unprofitableness of the Egyptian army, that shall not do him any kindness. If Nebuchadnezzar be intended, as the version which renders the Hebrew particle against, then it foretells the little hurt that the Egyptians shall do to Nebuchadnezzar. By casting up mounts; when Nebuchadnezzar shall with so much speed and skill east up forts and build mounts, wooden castles, to annoy Jerusalem, secure his own forces, and terrify the Egyptian king from the difficulty of raising the siege, which could not be done without expense of much blood. To cut off many persons, of the besieged in Jerusalem, and of the Egyptians, if they attempt to raise the siege; this sense it bears in the French version.