An instrument of warfare used by besiegers to breach or break down the gates and walls of a city or fortress. In its simplest form, it was a heavy beam of timber with an iron tip resembling the head of a ram. Perhaps on account of this or because of its butting action when in use, it is designated by the same Hebrew word (kar) as the ram.​—Eze 4:1, 2; 21:22.

Besiegers would cast up a mound, or siege rampart, against the city walls to serve as an inclined plane on which battering rams and other engines of war might be brought. Towers as high as the city walls might be pushed up the rampart, thus placing attackers on the same level as defenders. The defending soldiers would endeavor to put the battering rams out of action by dropping firebrands on them or by catching them with chains or grapnels.