Verse 14
14. He built a wall without the city of David A wall on the north side of the city, (as we infer from the description that follows,) where besieging armies pitched their camps, and where, accordingly, there was need of the strongest possible fortifications. Whether this was a new wall, first built by Manasseh, or the repair and strengthening of an older one, cannot be positively determined, but the expression built a wall, points rather to the erection of a new wall.
On the west side of Gihon Rather, westward to Gihon, in the valley. The description seems to begin from the centre of the northern wall, and pass first westward to the valley, (either of Gihon, which was the northern part of the Hinnom valley, or of that branch of the Tyropoeon which begins near the modern Yaffa gate,) and then eastward even to the entering in at the fish gate, which was near the northeast corner of the ancient city. Nehemiah 3:3, note.
Compassed about Ophel The southern slope of Moriah, on whose wall Jotham had “built much.” See note on 2 Chronicles 27:8. Manasseh strengthened and completed this work of his great-grandfather.
Raised it up a very great height This wall, as exposed by modern excavations at Jerusalem, is found at present to be over seventy feet in height. “Upward of fifty shafts,” says Captain Warren, “were sunk about Ophel in search of the wall. Eight of these shafts were in connexion with the line of wall which is now found to extend as far as seven hundred feet from the first tower in a southeasterly direction along the eastern ridge of Ophel.”
Be the first to react on this!
