Engine (Hastings' Dictionary)

Besides the battering-ram, 'forts' dayek, p;;i (LXX irpoixaxOivei, Uxf. Heb. Lex. ' bul- wark,' 'siege-wall'), are mentioned as used in sieges in the Chalda-an era (2 K 25' = Jer .li^, Ezk 4^ 17" 21" i"i 215" [all]). These forts were prob. towers on wheels manned with archers, and pushed for- ward by degrees against the wall to be attacked (cf. 1 Alac la*''"). Such a tower might be combined with a battering-ram, or at least used to cover the attack of the ram. See Batterino-ram.

In 1 Ch 26'° Uzziah is said to have ' made in Jerusalem engines invented by cunning men (lit. ' contrivances, the invention of inventive men,' ^s-in nj^'ijo nijiif-n, see Oxf. Heb. Lex. s. ftysr-) t<j be on the towers and upon the battlements, to shoot arrows and great stones withal.' These 'engines' were probably similar to the Koman entnpulta an<l bnlitta. The only other occurrence of the word p:;' n is in Ec 7^ ' God iii.ade man upright, but they have sought out many invcn- ttuns.'

In Maccaba>an times several difl'erent kinds of engines were in use. 'He encamjied,' writes the author of 1 Mae, 'against the sanctuary many days, and set there artillery, and engines, and instruments to cast fire (or ' liery darts'), and others to cast stones, and tormenta {gKopviSia) to cast darts, and slings' (6°'). W. E. Barnes.