FORT, FORTIFICATIONS, 'FENCED CITIES' (fort, Several Hebrew words are thus translated: Maw-tsood' net), a fastness (2 Sam. v:9; xxii:2, and five times in the Psalms); maw-ooz' 011'7, Dan. xi:19), a stronghold, fortified by nature and art; daw-yake' (r.7r, 2 Kings xxv:i; Jer.1*:4).
Inventions for the defense of men in social life are older than history.
(1) Eg7ptian. The walls, towers and gates tecture, and may be considered as more primitive, though perhaps posterior to the era when the progress of Israel, under the guidance of Joshua, expelled several Canaanitish tribes, whose system of civilization, in common with that of the rest of Western Asia, bore an Egyptian type, and whose towers and battlements were remarkably high, or rather were erected in very elevated situ ations. When, therefore, the Israelites entered Palestine, we may assume that the 'fenced cities' they had to attack vvere, according to their de gree of antiquity, fortified with more or less of art, but all with huge stones in the lower walls, like the Etruscan. Indeed, Asia Minor, Armenia, Syria and even Jerusalem still bear marks of this most ancient system. Stones from six to fifty feet in length, with suitable proportions, can still be detected in many walls of the cities of those regions, where....er quarrics existed, from Nineveh, where beneath the surf=e there still remain ruins and walls of huge stones. sculptured with bas-re liefs, originally painted, to Babylon, and Bassorah, where bricks, sun-dried or baked, and stamped with letters, are yet found, as well as in all the plains of the rivers where that material alone could be easily procured. The wall was some times double or triple (2 Chron. xxxii :5), suc cessively girding a rocky elevation, and 'building a city' originally meant the construction of the wall.
In Biblical times the general distinction be tween a city and village was that the former was surrounded by one or more walls, while the lat ter was not. These walls were often crowned with battlements and parapets, with towers placed at frequent intervals (2 Chron. xxxii :5 ; Jer. xxxi :38). Engines of war were mounted on them, and, in times of war, a constant watch was kept (2 Chron. xxvi :9, 15 ; Judg. ix :45; 2 Kings ix :i7). (Layard, Nineveh.) The walled towns of Palestine seldom served to check the invasion of an enemy, though they often prolonged the struggle (2 Kings xviii :to; xxv :3).
EiguratiVe. (1) 'Sitting in the gate' of the fortress was, and still is, synonymous with the possession of power, and even now there is com monly in the fortified gate of a royal palace in the East, on the floor above the doorway, a coun cil-room with a kind of balcony, whence the sov ereign sometimes sees his people, and where he may sit in judgment. (2) The Lord is the fortress or stronghold of his people. To him they flee in times of danger • in him they trust and find preservation from h'urt (Ps. xviii :2; Nah. :7). (3) "The fortress also shall cease from Ephraim" (Is. xvii :3), is an expression signifying that she loses her fortified cities, which were once her defense. (4) To overthrow one's fortress is to rob it of defense, to humiliate (Is. xxv :12). (5) Of the righteous man it is said, "his place of de fense shall be the munitions of rocks" (Is. xxxiii : 16), e., God's protection shall be to him as the impregnable walls of a fortress upon a rock. "I have set thee for a tower and a forlress among my people," etc. (Jer. vi :27).