In the towns and cities of Palestine, are supposed to have been comparatively narrow and ill graded, on account of the unevenness of their sites, and the little use of wheel-carriages. They were wider, however, than in many modern cities, Luke 14:21 , and terminated in large public areas around the gates, Nehemiah 8:1 . Josephus says that those of Jerusalem were paved. They were named, like our own streets, Acts 9:11 , and often resembled the bazaars of modern eastern cities, the shops of the same kind being in the same street and giving it its name, as the bakers' street, Nehemiah 3:31,32; Jeremiah 37:21 , and the valley of the cheesemongers. Here, and especially at the prominent points and corners, men loved, as the Turks do now, to spread their piece of carpet and sit, 1 Samuel 4:13; Job 29:7; and here at the hours of prayer they performed their devotions, Matthew 6:5 .