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