BANK

bank:

(1) (saphah, "lip," "edge"): "By the bank of the Jordan" (2 Kings 2:13); "Upon the bank of the river were very many trees" (Ezekiel 47:7,12).

(2) (gadhah, "cuttings"): Always of banks overflowed (Joshua 3:15; 4:18; Isaiah 8:7), as also

(3) (gidhyah, 1 Chronicles 12:15).

(4) (solelah, "mound," "rampart"): "Cast up a bank against the city" (2 Samuel 20:15, the English Revised Version "mount," the American Standard Revised Version "mound"; compare 2 Kings 19:32; Isaiah 37:33). "Banks of sweet herbs" (Song of Solomon 5:13); "the marginal rendering is the right one, `towers of perfumes,' i.e. plants with fragrant leaves and flowers trained on trellis-work" (Speaker's Commentary in the place cited.).

(5) ((charax, "a stake," "entrenchment"): "Thine enemies shall cast up a bank about thee" (Luke 19:43 the King James Version "trench"). It is probably a military term and stands for a "palisade" (so the Revised Version, margin), i.e. probably an embankment of stakes strengthened with branches and earth, with a ditch behind it, used by the besiegers as a protection against arrows or attacking parties (Latin vallum), such, no doubt, as was employed by Titus in the siege of Jerusalem, 70 AD (Josephus, BJ, V, vi, 2).

(6) BANK, BANKING (which see).

M. O. Evans

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Edited by James Orr, published in 1939 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.