Bible Dictionaries

Easton's Bible Dictionary

Market-Place

Any place of public resort, and hence a public place or broad street (Matthew 11:16; 20:3 ), as well as a forum or market-place proper, where goods were exposed for sale, and where public assemblies and trials were held (Acts 16:19; 17:17 ). This word occurs in the Old Testament only in Ezekiel 27:13 .

In early times markets were held at the gates of cities, where commodities were exposed for sale (2 Kings 7:18 ). In large towns the sale of particular articles seems to have been confined to certain streets, as we may infer from such expressions as "the bakers' street" (Jeremiah 37:21 ), and from the circumstance that in the time of Josephus the valley between Mounts Zion and Moriah was called the Tyropoeon or the "valley of the cheesemakers."