Bank

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

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Bibliography Information

Orr, James, M.A., D.D. General Editor. "Entry for 'BANK'".  "International Standard Bible Encyclopedia".  1915.