And they came and besieged him in Abel of Bethmaachah, and they cast up a bank against the city, and it stood in the trench: and all the people that [were] with Joab battered the wall, to throw it down.
Ver. 15. And they came and besieged him.] Who now probably repented him of his bold and treacherous enterprise; sicut Leo cassibus irretitus ait, Si praescivissem?
Battered the wall to throw it down.] It had been pity those walls should have stood, if they had been too high to throw a traitor's head over. Sheba, likely, thought himself very safe when gotten into a walled city: but what said the voice from heaven to Phocas the traitor? - if Nicephorus may be believed - Though thou build thy walls as high as heaven, and as strong as thou canst make them, yet sin lying at the bottom will easily undermine and overturn them: ευαλωτος η απολις, the city of thy defence will soon be taken.