Towers Beside A City Gate

TOWERS BESIDE A CITY GATE

At the gates he built towers: The text does not tell us how many gates there were or how many towers. TEV indicates one tower at each gate, but the text does not say this. The author could well be thinking of two at each gate, one on either side. Towers were immense stone structures either built on the walls or, in this case, attached to the walls beside a gate. On these towers were protected places where archers could shoot down on the enemy soldiers.

Many translators will need to use a descriptive phrase; for example, “high strong buildings beside each gate” (so also TOB 13:12).

Sixty cubits wide at the foundations may be rendered “with a base that was ninety feet wide” (CEV) or “that was ninety feet [or, thirty meters] wide at the bottom.”

Gates … forty cubits wide means “gates … sixty feet [or, twenty meters] wide.” It is important that the information about the width of the gates be placed in conjunction with the following information about the army.

So that his armies could march out … and his infantry form their ranks may also be expressed as “wide enough that his soldiers could march out [of the city] in rows.” The author impresses us with the width of these city gates by telling us that the infantry, the foot soldiers, could march through in formation without breaking ranks.

Bullard, Roger Aubrey, and Howard A. Hatton. A Handbook on Judith. New York: United Bible Societies, 2001. Print. UBS Handbook Series.