geder and mesukah . It was customary to surround vineyards with a wall of loose stones or mud, often crowned with thorns to keep off wild beasts; so Israel fenced by God (Psalms 80:12; Matthew 21:33). The haunt of serpents (Ecclesiastes 10:8; "whoso breaketh an hedge a serpent shall bite him," i.e., maliciously pulling down his neighbour's hedge wall he brings on himself his own punishment; Deuteronomy 19:14; Amos 5:19), and of locusts in cold weather (Nahum 3:17), "which camp in the hedges in the cold day (the cold taking away their power of flight), but when the sun ariseth ... fleeaway;" so the Assyrian hosts shall suddenly disappear, not leaving a trace behind.
Maundrell describes the walls round the gardens of Damascus, they are built of great pieces of earth hardened in the sun, placed on one another in two rows, making a cheap, expeditious, and in that dry country a durable wall. Isaiah (Isaiah 5:5) distinguishes the "hedge" (mesukah ) and the "wall" (geder ); the prickly tangled "hedge" being an additional fence (Micah 7:4). Proverbs 15:19, "the way of the slothful is as an hedge of thorns"; it seems to lain as if a hedge of thorns were in his way (Proverbs 20:4; Proverbs 22:13; Proverbs 26:13), whereas all is clear to the willing. The narrow path between the hedges of vineyards is distinct from the "highways" (Luke 14:23; Numbers 22:24).