43. ἡμέραι. Often used of troublous times, like the Latin tempora.
περιβαλοῦσιν … χάρακά σοι. ‘Shall surround thee with a palisade,’ Isa 29:3-4; Isa 37:33, LXX[336] χάραξ in Polybius means a palisaded mound. Literally fulfilled forty years afterwards at the siege of Jerusalem, when Titus surrounded the city first with a palisaded mound (vallum and agger), and then with a wall of masonry. Hence the ‘pale’ of Wyclif and the ‘mound’ of Tyndale were better than the ‘trench’ of the A.V[337], Genevan, and Rhemish. The Jews in one of their furious sorties destroyed this χάραξ, and then Titus built the wall.
[336] LXX. Septuagint.
[337] A.V. Authorised Version.
συνέξουσίν σε πάντοθεν. The blockade established was so terribly rigid that myriads of the Jews perished of starvation.