Fortify

Children love to build forts, whether in their playroom or nearby woods. This play fort-building stands in stark contrast to the deadly serious business of fortifying a city in Bible times. When either local neighbors or distant empires turned a covetous eye toward a city’s food supply, natural resources, or trade revenues, the residents had the option of exiting their city and fighting their attackers or seeking shelter within the city. At times it was more prudent to flee behind the multiple barriers that shaped the defenses of a fortified city. Those barriers were designed to slow down the attackers and create such a cost in lives and resources that they would move on to another target—one with a softer outer core of protection.

The types and numbers of barriers that comprised a fortified city varied with era and location. Here we summarize the full complement of components that might have comprised a fortified city, presenting them in the order that an attacker would meet them.[101] The first was a dry moat that was dug around all the other defenses of the city. Its depth created an exposed killing zone, removing any form of cover from fire for the attacker. On the side of the moat facing the city, the residents constructed a revetment wall that was a lower wall line outside the perimeter of the main wall. Between this revetment wall and the main wall was a rampart or glacis. This artificially pitched slope of thirty to forty degrees was often coated with clay or plaster. The severe slope and the slippery surface discouraged those who made it past the moat and revetment wall from proceeding any farther. The dry moat, revetment wall, and rampart all guarded access to the main wall that itself bristled with towers that allowed the defenders to strike their exposed attackers from above. Access to the fortified city through this main wall was via a gatehouse rather than just through a simple gate. This gatehouse extended beyond the wall line to allow withering attack to be directed from above on any who tried to attack the main entry. Within the gatehouse there were multiple rooms on each side of the path into the city from which soldiers attacked those who made it past the first gate.

The defensibility of Arad’s fortress was improved greatly by locating it at the top of rising terrain.

The biblical authors mentioned fortified cities or their components for a number of reasons. Sometimes this information was shared because it helped define the challenge ahead that summoned Israel to trust the Lord. Fortified city-states built by Canaanites awaited any Israelites who attempted to cross into the Promised Land. Moses sent a team to explore the land, asking them to specifically report on whether the urban areas were “unwalled or fortified” (Num. 13:19). The exaggerated report of fortified cities terrified the people and eradicated their passion for an invasion (Num. 13:28)—a lack of faith that stands in stark contrast to the faith that allowed for the successful destruction of other cities (Deut. 3:5–6; Josh. 14:12).

When the biblical authors wished to showcase the success of Israelite kings, they could do so by describing the cities they had fortified or border fortresses they had built (1 Kings 12:25; 15:17; 22:39; 2 Chron. 8:5; 11:5–11; 14:6; 26:9).[102] But accompanying these compliments was the warning about trusting in fortified cities at the expense of trust in the Lord as their supreme defense (Isa. 17:10; Jer. 5:17). Failure to trust God met with a necessary correction: “They will lay siege to all the cities throughout your land until the high fortified walls in which you trust fall down” (Deut. 28:52). It is sad that this correction occurred not just once but many times at the hands of the Assyrians, Egyptians, and Babylonians (2 Kings 18:13; 2 Chron. 12:2–4; 32:1; Isa. 17:3; 36:1; Jer. 34:7; Hab. 1:6, 10). “Israel has forgotten their Maker and built palaces; Judah has fortified many towns. But I will send fire on their cities that will consume their fortresses” (Hosea 8:14).

This forbidding defensive wall at Dan is constructed from boulders held in place by smaller chinking stones.

The notion of fortification occurs in figures of speech as well. The fortified city became a symbol of urban living just as the agricultural watchtower symbolized rural life. Thus the merism “from watchtower to fortified city” was employed to describe the sum total of all lands, both urban and rural (2 Kings 17:9; 18:8).

The fortified city brings to mind two connotations that appear in metaphors. The first is that a fortified city is a safe haven, a place that ensures future survival. Thus wealth can be perceived as a fortified city: “The wealth of the rich is their fortified city; they imagine it a wall too high to scale” (Prov. 18:11; see also 10:15). In reality, only the Lord offers such security (Prov. 18:10). “Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him. Truly he is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will never be shaken” (Ps. 62:1–2).

The second set of metaphors likens people to the absolutely unyielding fortified city. The wise poet warns, “A brother wronged is more unyielding than a fortified city” (Prov. 18:19). And the unyielding character of Jeremiah was described with similar language. “Today I have made you a fortified city, an iron pillar and a bronze wall to stand against the whole land—against the kings of Judah, its officials, its priests and the people of the land” (Jer. 1:18; see also 15:20). This description is so fitting given that Jeremiah had to confront the leaders of God’s people and their subjects, who had built fortified cities without a complementary faith in the Lord (Jer. 4:5).