Banks in the Bible Encyclopedia - ISBE

bank: (1) (saphah, "lip," "edge"): "By the bank of the Jordan" (2 Ki 2:13); "Upon the bank of the river were very many trees" (Ezek 47:7,12). (2) (gadhah, "cuttings"): Always of banks overflowed (Josh 3:15; 4:18; Isa 8:7), as also (3) (gidhyah, 1 Ch 12:15). (4) (solelah, "mound," "rampart"): "Cast up a bank against the city" (2 Sam 20:15, the English Revised Version "mount," the American Standard Revised Version "mound"; compare 2 Ki 19:32; Isa 37:33). "Banks of sweet herbs" (Song 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" (Lk 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).