'Wall' in the Bible

“Joseph is a fruitful bough,A fruitful bough by a spring;Its branches run over a wall.

The sons of Israel went through the midst of the sea on the dry land, and the waters were like a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.

But the sons of Israel walked on dry land through the midst of the sea, and the waters were like a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.

The houses of the villages, however, which have no surrounding wall shall be considered as open fields; they have redemption rights and revert in the jubilee.

Then the angel of the Lord stood in a narrow path of the vineyards, with a wall on this side and a wall on that side.

When the donkey saw the angel of the Lord, she pressed herself to the wall and pressed Balaam’s foot against the wall, so he struck her again.

“The pasture lands of the cities which you shall give to the Levites shall extend from the wall of the city outward a thousand cubits around.

Then she let them down by a rope through the window, for her house was on the city wall, so that she was living on the wall.

It shall be that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people will go up every man straight ahead.”

So the people shouted, and priests blew the trumpets; and when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, the people shouted with a great shout and the wall fell down flat, so that the people went up into the city, every man straight ahead, and they took the city.

Saul hurled the spear for he thought, “I will pin David to the wall.” But David escaped from his presence twice.

Saul tried to pin David to the wall with the spear, but he slipped away out of Saul’s presence, so that he stuck the spear into the wall. And David fled and escaped that night.

The king sat on his seat as usual, the seat by the wall; then Jonathan rose up and Abner sat down by Saul’s side, but David’s place was empty.

They were a wall to us both by night and by day, all the time we were with them tending the sheep.

They put his weapons in the temple of Ashtaroth, and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan.

all the valiant men rose and walked all night, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan, and they came to Jabesh and burned them there.

and if it happens that the king’s wrath rises and he says to you, ‘Why did you go so near to the city to fight? Did you not know that they would shoot from the wall?

Who struck down Abimelech the son of Jerubbesheth? Did not a woman throw an upper millstone on him from the wall so that he died at Thebez? Why did you go so near the wall?’—then you shall say, ‘Your servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also.’”

Moreover, the archers shot at your servants from the wall; so some of the king’s servants are dead, and your servant Uriah the Hittite is also dead.”

Now David was sitting between the two gates; and the watchman went up to the roof of the gate by the wall, and raised his eyes and looked, and behold, a man running by himself.

They came and besieged him in Abel Beth-maacah, and they cast up a siege ramp against the city, and it stood by the rampart; and all the people who were with Joab were wreaking destruction in order to topple the wall.

Such is not the case. But a man from the hill country of Ephraim, Sheba the son of Bichri by name, has lifted up his hand against King David. Only hand him over, and I will depart from the city.” And the woman said to Joab, “Behold, his head will be thrown to you over the wall.”

“For by You I can run upon a troop;By my God I can leap over a wall.

Then Solomon formed a marriage alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and took Pharaoh’s daughter and brought her to the city of David until he had finished building his own house and the house of the Lord and the wall around Jerusalem.

He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even to the hyssop that grows on the wall; he spoke also of animals and birds and creeping things and fish.

Against the wall of the house he built stories encompassing the walls of the house around both the nave and the inner sanctuary; thus he made side chambers all around.

The lowest story was five cubits wide, and the middle was six cubits wide, and the third was seven cubits wide; for on the outside he made offsets in the wall of the house all around in order that the beams would not be inserted in the walls of the house.

He placed the cherubim in the midst of the inner house, and the wings of the cherubim were spread out, so that the wing of the one was touching the one wall, and the wing of the other cherub was touching the other wall. So their wings were touching each other in the center of the house.

Now this is the account of the forced labor which King Solomon levied to build the house of the Lord, his own house, the Millo, the wall of Jerusalem, Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.

But the rest fled to Aphek into the city, and the wall fell on 27,000 men who were left. And Ben-hadad fled and came into the city into an inner chamber.

Then he took his oldest son who was to reign in his place, and offered him as a burnt offering on the wall. And there came great wrath against Israel, and they departed from him and returned to their own land.

As the king of Israel was passing by on the wall a woman cried out to him, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!”

When the king heard the words of the woman, he tore his clothes—now he was passing by on the wall—and the people looked, and behold, he had sackcloth beneath on his body.

He said, “Throw her down.” So they threw her down, and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall and on the horses, and he trampled her under foot.

Then Jehoash king of Israel captured Amaziah king of Judah, the son of Jehoash the son of Ahaziah, at Beth-shemesh, and came to Jerusalem and tore down the wall of Jerusalem from the Gate of Ephraim to the Corner Gate, 400 cubits.

Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, and Shebnah and Joah, said to Rabshakeh, “Speak now to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; and do not speak with us in Judean in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”

But Rabshakeh said to them, “Has my master sent me only to your master and to you to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, doomed to eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?”

Then he turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, saying,

Now in the ninth year of his reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, camped against it and built a siege wall all around it.

The wingspan of the cherubim was twenty cubits; the wing of one, of five cubits, touched the wall of the house, and its other wing, of five cubits, touched the wing of the other cherub.

The wing of the other cherub, of five cubits, touched the wall of the house; and its other wing of five cubits was attached to the wing of the first cherub.

Then Joash king of Israel captured Amaziah king of Judah, the son of Joash the son of Jehoahaz, at Beth-shemesh, and brought him to Jerusalem and tore down the wall of Jerusalem from the Gate of Ephraim to the Corner Gate, 400 cubits.

Now he went out and warred against the Philistines, and broke down the wall of Gath and the wall of Jabneh and the wall of Ashdod; and he built cities in the area of Ashdod and among the Philistines.

He built the upper gate of the house of the Lord, and he built extensively the wall of Ophel.

And he took courage and rebuilt all the wall that had been broken down and erected towers on it, and built another outside wall and strengthened the Millo in the city of David, and made weapons and shields in great number.

They called this out with a loud voice in the language of Judah to the people of Jerusalem who were on the wall, to frighten and terrify them, so that they might take the city.

Now after this he built the outer wall of the city of David on the west side of Gihon, in the valley, even to the entrance of the Fish Gate; and he encircled the Ophel with it and made it very high. Then he put army commanders in all the fortified cities of Judah.

Then they burned the house of God and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burned all its fortified buildings with fire and destroyed all its valuable articles.

For we are slaves; yet in our bondage our God has not forsaken us, but has extended lovingkindness to us in the sight of the kings of Persia, to give us reviving to raise up the house of our God, to restore its ruins and to give us a wall in Judah and Jerusalem.

They said to me, “The remnant there in the province who survived the captivity are in great distress and reproach, and the wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates are burned with fire.”

and a letter to Asaph the keeper of the king’s forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the fortress which is by the temple, for the wall of the city and for the house to which I will go.” And the king granted them to me because the good hand of my God was on me.

So I went up at night by the ravine and inspected the wall. Then I entered the Valley Gate again and returned.

Then I said to them, “You see the bad situation we are in, that Jerusalem is desolate and its gates burned by fire. Come, let us rebuild the wall of Jerusalem so that we will no longer be a reproach.”

Then Eliashib the high priest arose with his brothers the priests and built the Sheep Gate; they consecrated it and hung its doors. They consecrated the wall to the Tower of the Hundred and the Tower of Hananel.

Next to him Uzziel the son of Harhaiah of the goldsmiths made repairs. And next to him Hananiah, one of the perfumers, made repairs, and they restored Jerusalem as far as the Broad Wall.

Hanun and the inhabitants of Zanoah repaired the Valley Gate. They built it and hung its doors with its bolts and its bars, and a thousand cubits of the wall to the Refuse Gate.

Shallum the son of Col-hozeh, the official of the district of Mizpah, repaired the Fountain Gate. He built it, covered it and hung its doors with its bolts and its bars, and the wall of the Pool of Shelah at the king’s garden as far as the steps that descend from the city of David.

After them the Tekoites repaired another section in front of the great projecting tower and as far as the wall of Ophel.

Now it came about that when Sanballat heard that we were rebuilding the wall, he became furious and very angry and mocked the Jews.

Now Tobiah the Ammonite was near him and he said, “Even what they are building—if a fox should jump on it, he would break their stone wall down!”

So we built the wall and the whole wall was joined together to half its height, for the people had a mind to work.

Thus in Judah it was said,“The strength of the burden bearers is failing,Yet there is much rubbish;And we ourselves are unableTo rebuild the wall.”

then I stationed men in the lowest parts of the space behind the wall, the exposed places, and I stationed the people in families with their swords, spears and bows.

When our enemies heard that it was known to us, and that God had frustrated their plan, then all of us returned to the wall, each one to his work.

Those who were rebuilding the wall and those who carried burdens took their load with one hand doing the work and the other holding a weapon.

I said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, “The work is great and extensive, and we are separated on the wall far from one another.

I also applied myself to the work on this wall; we did not buy any land, and all my servants were gathered there for the work.

Now when it was reported to Sanballat, Tobiah, to Geshem the Arab and to the rest of our enemies that I had rebuilt the wall, and that no breach remained in it, although at that time I had not set up the doors in the gates,

In it was written, “It is reported among the nations, and Gashmu says, that you and the Jews are planning to rebel; therefore you are rebuilding the wall. And you are to be their king, according to these reports.

So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of the month Elul, in fifty-two days.

Now when the wall was rebuilt and I had set up the doors, and the gatekeepers and the singers and the Levites were appointed,

Now at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem they sought out the Levites from all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem so that they might celebrate the dedication with gladness, with hymns of thanksgiving and with songs to the accompaniment of cymbals, harps and lyres.

The priests and the Levites purified themselves; they also purified the people, the gates and the wall.

Then I had the leaders of Judah come up on top of the wall, and I appointed two great choirs, the first proceeding to the right on top of the wall toward the Refuse Gate.

At the Fountain Gate they went directly up the steps of the city of David by the stairway of the wall above the house of David to the Water Gate on the east.

The second choir proceeded to the left, while I followed them with half of the people on the wall, above the Tower of Furnaces, to the Broad Wall,

Then I warned them and said to them, “Why do you spend the night in front of the wall? If you do so again, I will use force against you.” From that time on they did not come on the sabbath.

For by You I can run upon a troop;And by my God I can leap over a wall.

How long will you assail a man,That you may murder him, all of you,Like a leaning wall, like a tottering fence?

A rich man’s wealth is his strong city,And like a high wall in his own imagination.

And behold, it was completely overgrown with thistles;Its surface was covered with nettles,And its stone wall was broken down.

He who digs a pit may fall into it, and a serpent may bite him who breaks through a wall.

“My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag.Behold, he is standing behind our wall,He is looking through the windows,He is peering through the lattice.

“If she is a wall,We will build on her a battlement of silver;But if she is a door,We will barricade her with planks of cedar.”

“I was a wall, and my breasts were like towers;Then I became in his eyes as one who finds peace.

Against every high tower,Against every fortified wall,

“So now let Me tell you what I am going to do to My vineyard:I will remove its hedge and it will be consumed;I will break down its wall and it will become trampled ground.

And you saw that the breachesIn the wall of the city of David were many;And you collected the waters of the lower pool.

Then you counted the houses of JerusalemAnd tore down houses to fortify the wall.

For You have been a defense for the helpless,A defense for the needy in his distress,A refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat;For the breath of the ruthlessIs like a rain storm against a wall.

Therefore this iniquity will be to youLike a breach about to fall,A bulge in a high wall,Whose collapse comes suddenly in an instant,

Then Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said to Rabshakeh, “Speak now to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it; and do not speak with us in Judean in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”

But Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me only to your master and to you to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, doomed to eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?”

Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord,

“Moreover, I will make your battlements of rubies,And your gates of crystal,And your entire wall of precious stones.

We grope along the wall like blind men,We grope like those who have no eyes;We stumble at midday as in the twilight,Among those who are vigorous we are like dead men.

“Then I will make you to this peopleA fortified wall of bronze;And though they fight against you,They will not prevail over you;For I am with you to save youAnd deliver you,” declares the Lord.

‘Thus says the Lord God of Israel, “Behold, I am about to turn back the weapons of war which are in your hands, with which you are warring against the king of Babylon and the Chaldeans who are besieging you outside the wall; and I will gather them into the center of this city.

in the eleventh year of Zedekiah, in the fourth month, in the ninth day of the month, the city wall was breached.

“I will set fire to the wall of Damascus,And it will devour the fortified towers of Ben-hadad.”