Lectionary Calendar
Friday, March 29th, 2024
Good Friday
There are 2 days til Easter!
Attention!
StudyLight.org has pledged to help build churches in Uganda. Help us with that pledge and support pastors in the heart of Africa.
Click here to join the effort!

Bible Dictionaries
City

American Tract Society Bible Dictionary

Search for…
or
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z
Prev Entry
Cisterns
Next Entry
Clauda
Resource Toolbox
Additional Links

The towns and cities of Palestine were commonly built on heights, for better security against robbers or invaders. These heights, surrounded by walls, sometimes formed the entire city. In other cases, the citadel alone crowned the hill, around and at the base of which the town was built; and in time of danger the surrounding population all took refuge in the fortified place. Larger towns and cities were often not only defended by strong outer walls, with towers and gates, but by a citadel or castle within these limits-a last resort when the rest of the city was taken, Judges 9:46,51 . The "fenced cities" of the Jews, Deuteronomy 3:5 , were of various sizes and degrees of strength; some being surrounded by high and thick stone walls, and others by feebler ramparts, often of clay or sun-dried bricks, and sometimes combustible, Isaiah 9:10 Amos 1:7-14 . They were also provided with watchmen, Psalm 127:1 Song of Song of Solomon 5:7 . The streets of ancient towns were usually narrow, and often unpaved. Some cities were adorned with vast parks and gardens; this was the case with Babylon, which embraced an immense at this day to form any reliable estimate of the population of the cities of Judea. Jerusalem is said by Josephus to have had 150,000 inhabitants, and to have contained, at the time of its siege by the Romans, more than a million of persons crowded in its circuit of four miles of wall. See GATE, REFUGE, CITIES OF, WATCHMEN.

CITY OF DAVID, usually denotes mount Zion, the southwest section of Jerusalem, which David took from the Jebusites, and occupied by a palace and city called by his name. In Luke 2:11 , Bethlehem his native city is meant.

CITY OF GOD, Deuteronomy 12:5 Psalm 46:4 , and the HOLY, HOLINESS CITY, Nehemiah 11:1 , names of Jerusalem. Its modern name is El-Kuds, the Holy.

Bibliography Information
Rand, W. W. Entry for 'City'. American Tract Society Bible Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/​dictionaries/​eng/​ats/​c/city.html. 1859.
adsFree icon
Ads FreeProfile