the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Wall
Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words
or Chômâh (חוֹמָה, Strong's #2346), “wall.” This word is found in several Semitic languages and even in Egyptian. In Phoenician, it has the more restricted significance of “fortifications.” It is thought that the root meaning is “to protect,” as in the Arabic chama, “to protect.”
Chômâh occurs about 120 times in the Hebrew Bible. Its first occurrence is in Exod. 14:22: “And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.” It is rare in the Pentateuch, in the historical books, and in the poetical books. The most frequent use is in Nehemiah, where Nehemiah is in charge of the rebuilding of the “wall” of Jerusalem.
The primary meaning of chômâh is a “wall” around a city, since in ancient Israel people had to protect themselves by constructing such a well-fortified “wall” (cf. Lev. 25:29-30). Stones were used in the construction of the “wall”: “Now Tobiah the Ammonite was by him, and he said, Even that which they build, if a fox go up, he shall even break down their stone wall” (Neh. 4:3). The “wall” was also strengthened by thickness and other devices. From Solomonic times double walls (casemate) served a strategic purpose in that they were easy to construct and could be filled in with rocks and dirt in the case of a siege. There was also another possibility during a siege: “And the city was broken up, and all the men of war fled by night by the way of the gate between two walls, which is by the king’s garden: (now the Chaldees were against the city round about:) …” (2 Kings 25:4).
In the case of war the enemy besieged a city and made efforts to breach the “wall” with a battering ram. The goal was to force a breach wide enough for the troops to enter into the city; “And Jehoash king of Israel took Amaziah king of Judah, the son of Jehoash the son of Ahaziah, at Beth-shemesh, and came to Jerusalem, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem from the gate of Ephraim unto the corner gate, four hundred cubits [about six hundred feet]” (2 Kings 14:13). At the time of Nebuchadnezzar’s invasion and victory over Jerusalem, he had the “walls” of the city demolished: “And they burnt the house of God, and brake down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces thereof with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof” (2 Chron. 36:19). For this reason Nehemiah had to help his unsuccessful compatriots to rebuild the “wall” about 135 years later: “Then said I unto them, Ye see the distress that we are in, how Jerusalem lieth waste, and the gates thereof are burned with fire: come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem, that we be no more a reproach” (Neh. 2:17).
Chômâh also referred to any “wall,” whether around buildings or parts of the city such as the temple precincts: “And behold a wall on the outside of the house round about, and in the man’s hand a measuring reed of six cubits long by the cubit and a handbreadth: so he measured the breadth of the building, one reed; and the height, one reed” (Ezek. 40:5).
The Septuagint gives the following translation: teichos (“wall”).
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Vines, W. E., M. A. Entry for 'Wall'. Vine's Expository Dictionary of OT Words. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/vot/w/wall.html. 1940.
