sen by the Almighty to subdue, the prophet particularly mentions the gates of brass and bars of iron. According to this view, the emphasis of the following passage is much greater perhaps than is commonly apprehended: " A brother offended, is harder to be won than a strong city; and their contentions are like the bars of a castle," that are extremely difficult to be removed, both on account of their size, and of the strong and durable materials of which they are made.

In the capital of Egypt, also, all their locks and keys are of wood; they have none of iron, not even for their city gates, which may with ease be opened without a key. The keys or bits of timber, with little pieces of wire, lift up other pieces of wire that are in the lock, and enter into certain little holes, out of which the ends of the wires that are in the key have just expelled the corresponding wires ; upon which the gate is opened. But to accomplish this, a key is not necessary: the Egyptian lock is so imperfectly made, that one may without difficulty open it with his finger, armed with a little soft paste. The locks in Canaan, at one time, do not seem to have been made with greater art, if Solomon allude to the ease with which they were frequently opened without a key: "My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him."s

But conscious that all these precautions were insufficient for their security, the orientals employed watchmen to patrol the city during the night, to suppress any disorders in the streets, or to guard the walls against the attempts of a foreign enemy. To this custom Solomon refers in these words: "The watchmen that went about

the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the wall took away my veil from me." This custom may be traced to a very remote antiquity; so early as the departure of Israel from the land of Egypt, the morning watch is mentioned, certainly indicating the time when the watchmen were commonly relieved. In Persia, the watchmen were obliged to indemnify those who were robbed in the streets; which accounts for the vigilance and severity which they display in the discharge of their office, and illustrates the character of watchmen given to Ezekiel, who lived in that country, and the duties he was required to perform. If the wicked perished in his iniquities without warning, the prophet was to be accountable for his blood; but if he duly pointed out his danger, he delivered his own soul." These terms, therefore, were neither harsh nor severe; they were the common appointments of watchmen in Persia. They were also charged to announce the progress of the night to the slumbering city: "The burden of Dumah; he calls to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? watchman, what of the night? The watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night."" This is confirmed by an observation of Chardin, upon these words of Moses: "For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night;" that as the people of the east have no clocks, the several parts of the day and of the night, which are eight in all, are announced. In the Indies, the parts of the night are made known, as well by instruments of music, in great cities, as by the rounds of the watchmen, who, with cries and small drums,

+ Song v, 7.
u Ezek. xxxiii, 2.

V

Taylor's Calmet, vol. iii.

w Isa. xxi, 11.

give them notice that a fourth part of the night is past. Now, as these cries awaked those who had slept all that quarter part of the night, it appeared to them but as a moment. There are sixty of these people in the Indies by day, and as many by night; that is, fifteen for each division.

It is evident the ancient Jews knew, by means of some public notice, how the night watches passed away; but, whether they simply announced the termination of the watch, or made use of trumpets, or other sonorous instruments, in making the proclamation, it may not be easy to determine; and still less what kind of chronometers the watchmen used. The probability is, that the watches were announced with the sound of a trumpet; for the prophet Ezekiel makes it a part of the watchman's duty, at least in time of war, to blow the trumpet, and warn the people.x

The watchman, in a time of danger, seems to have taken his station in a tower, which was built over the gate of the city. We may form a tolerably distinct idea of the ancient towers in Palestine, from the description which the sacred historian gives us of one, in the entrance of Mahanaim: " And David sat between the two gates, and the watchman went up to the roof over the gate unto the wall, and lift up his eyes and looked, and beheld a man running alone. The watchman cried and told the king; and the king said, if he is alone, there is tidings in his mouth. And the watchman saw another man running; and the watchman called unto the porter, and said, Behold, another man running alone; and the king said, he also bringeth tidings." When the tidings were announ

- Ezek. xxxiii, 3.

Harmer's Observ. vol. i, p. 333.

y 2 Sam. xviii, 24; and xix, 8.

ced, the historian observes, "the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept." It is afterwards added, "Then the king arose and sat in the gate; and they told unto all the people saying, behold the king doth sit in the gate; and all the people came before the king, for Israel had fled every man to his tent.”

From this description it appears, that the tower in the entrance of Mahanaim, had two pair of gates, at some distance from each other; in a small room, which was often found by the side of these fortified gates, the door of which opened into the passage between them, sat the king, waiting in fearful suspense, the issue of the contest, for it cannot be supposed he sat in the passage itself, which had been at once unbecoming his dignity, and in. commodious to the passengers entering or leaving the city. We find a watchman stationed on the top of this tower, to which he went up by a staircase from the passage, which, like the roof of their dwelling-houses, was flat, for the purpose of descrying at a distance, those that were approaching the place, or repelling the attacks of an enemy. The observations made by the watchman were not communicated by him immediately to the king, but by the intervention of a warder at the outer gate of the tower; and it appears, that a private staircase led from the lower room in which the king was sitting, to the upper room over the gateway; for by that communication he retired to give full vent to his sorrow. The only circumstance involved in any doubt, is in what part of this building he sat, (for it is evident he continued in some part of the gate), when he returned his thanks to the army, for their exertions in his favour; or in the langnage of the historian, "spake to the hearts of his servants," and received their congratulations. It is somewhat uncertain,

whether he gave audience to his people in the upper room, where he lamented in strains so affecting, the death of Absalom, or in the little chamber between the two gates, where he waited the arrival of the messengers, or in some other part of the building. The ancient custom of sitting in the gate on solemn occasions, rather favours the opinion, that David went down from the apartment above the gate, to the chamber in the side of the passage. This custom, which may be traced to the remotest antiquity, is still observed in the east; for when Pococke returned from viewing the town of ancient Byblus, the sheik and the elders were sitting in the gate of the city, after the manner of their ancestors."

The fortified cities in Canaan, as in some other countries, were commonly strengthened with a citadel, to which the inhabitants fled when they found it impossible to defend the place. The whole inhabitants of Thebes, unable to resist the repeated and furious assaults of Abimelech, retired into one of these towers, and bid defiance to his rage: "But there was a strong tower within the city, and thither fled all the men and women, and all they of the city, and shut it to them, and gat them up to the top of the tower." The extraordinary strength of this tower, and the various means of defence which were accumulated within its narrow walls, may be inferred from the violence of Abimelech's attack, and its fatal issue: " And Abimelech came unto the tower, and fought against it, and went hard unto the door of the tower, to burn it with fire. And a certain woman cast a piece of a millstone upon Abimelech's head, and all to break his skull." The city of Shechem had a tower of the same kind, into which the z Harmer's Observ. vol. i, p. 352, et seq. Judg. ix, 51.