CITY (עִיר֒, H6551; קִרְיָה, H7953; Gr. πόλις, G4484). Several words are used in the OT to describe a city. The most common is ’îr, which occurs 1,090 times. A more poetic term is kiryah, and another term is geret. The term ša’ar or gate, is used to describe a function of the city as center of justice, notably in the Book of Deuteronomy. It was not size or fortification that differentiated a city from a village (hasar) but some kind of enclosure and esp. the socio-economic and judicial functions of the urban settlement.
1. Origins of urban life in southwest Asia. The rise of cities has been termed the second great “revolution” of civilization. Unlike the earliest revolution, the domestication of plant and animals in Neolithic agriculture, the origins of urban life were more expressive of changes in man’s interaction with his fellowmen than in the interaction with his physical environment. Granted that the concept of surplus food, its production and accumulation had first to be invented and valued, to make urban life possible. But the essential element that distinguished town from village life was the invention, development and diffusion of a whole series of new institutions in greater size and more complex social character. Too much reliance has in the past been placed by archeologists upon the material evidence of monuments, fortifications, settlement layout, etc. to describe and explain the origin of cities in the Near E. Now we are beginning to realize that the origin of urban life lies in the more intangible realities of social stratification and administration. Size too is an inadequate criterion of urban life. What is significant rather is the expansion of full-time specialists in non-agricultural activities. By such criteria, it appears likely that the first towns originated in Mesopotamia in the middle of the 4th millennium b.c. Miss Kenyon has argued that Jericho appears with fortified walls and well-developed mud houses as early as 8000 b.c.; she classifies it as “urban.” Little is known of the social organizations of this early settlement, and writing is absent. Under criticism from Professor Braidwood, she concedes it might be “urban,” c. 5000 b.c. Sir Mortimer Wheeler, commenting on Miss Kenyon’s material accepts a date earlier than 6000 b.c. for Jericho as a “town.” Professor V. Gordon Childe takes both these authorities to task for using such loose terminology as “urbanization” and contends that in addition to size, heterogeneity of occupation, public works, etc., writing is essential to the categorization of the “city,” implying the existence of a highly specialized non-agricultural group that has the necessary leisure to develop this complex skill.
If the presence of a literati, associated with some method of formal education for the propagation of writing is assumed the criterion for urbanism, then the earliest evidence of cities in Mesopotamia is soon after 3500 b.c. Among the earliest cities were Erech, Eridu, Ur, Lagash, and Larsa in Sumer, the southernmost portion of the Tigris-Euphrates valley area. Kish and Jemdet Nasr, just to the N in Accad., are also very early towns. The steps in the transformation of the older village settlements into cities, a process that took many centuries, may be traceable in a number of these sites. Typically, these towns grew up around a walled precinct containing a temple area, devoted to the main city-god and other deities. At Erech, one temple was set on an artificial mound that was 40 ft. high and covered an area of c. 42,000 sq. ft. Streets were narrow, unpaved and lacking adequate drainage. At Ur, excavations have shown a continued rise of street level with the accumulation of refuse. Houses were jumbled together, without planning, apart from the open spaces designed around the temples and government buildings. Special sections of the town later began to be lined with merchants, booths and travelers’ inns. Near the city’s periphery resided the poorest people and large numbers of agriculturists were found within the periphery of the Mesopotamian cities. Excluding the full time farmers, it is likely that the largest cities housed 5-10,000 inhabitants, though even in the 3rd millennium b.c. some were of imposing size: Ur had perhaps 24,000; Lagash 10,000; Umma 16,000; Khafaji 12,000. At the beginning of the first millennium, Ur had 34,000 within the walled city and Greater Ur was prob. 36,000 (Woolley).
In the lower Nile and delta areas, some large walled communities began to be grouped into a number of independent, political units soon after 3500 b.c. Each contained large, cooperative irrigation projects to utilize the annual floods of the Nile. Writing is evidenced about 3100 b.c. and the written records begin to list the cities of Memphis, Thebes, Heliopolis, Nekkeb (El Kab), Abydos, etc. Built of more perishable materials, such as mud and wattle, and buried by the Nile alluvium, their material evidence is much more scanty than that of Mesopotamia. Furthermore, few large cities developed, as it became customary for each new pharaoh to change the site of his capital. Large cities, such as Thebes, with multi-storey houses and a processional avenue, became significant only in late dynasties. The Egyp. evidence of the functions of social, political and economic institutions is meager in contrast with the rich data available in the cuneiform texts of Mesopotamia. We therefore know very much less about the evolution of Egyp. town life. In addition to the royal cities we have glimpses of store-cities of the pharaoh such as Pithom and Ra’amses (Exod 1:11). Egyptian architecture is devoted to the temples and tombs, that is to the gods and the dead rather than to the transient dwellers of the earth. Brick buildings were first imitated from Mesopotamia about 3000 b.c., and mud-brick houses later became the rule.
2. Cities in the OT. The earliest Palestinian town to be discovered thus far is Jericho. Carbon14 tests suggest possibly that a town of some nine acres in extent existed between the 6th and 5th millennium b.c. In the absence of other urban sites for another 3000 years or more in Pal., it is premature to speculate whether Jericho is a unique phenomenon or not. Nor is there clear evidence that the Chalcolithic settlements evolved directly into the towns of the Early Bronze Age during the 3rd millennium b.c. This is the first great period of town formation, with evidence of towns encompassed by strong fortifications. At Megiddo and Khirbet Kerak the walls reached thicknesses of some thirty ft. The great population centers were in the valleys during the Early Bronze Age, esp. along the important coastal route. The towns were 5-10 acres in size, but at Khirbet Kerak located beside the Sea of Galilee, the town covered fifty acres. The excavated sites reveal a destruction layer, followed by the Amorite culture. The northern migrants represent one of the greatest and most decisive phases of the settlement of Pal., that occurred at the end of the 3rd and the beginning of the 2nd millennium b.c. One list enumerates some twenty towns and their districts in one group, and some sixty-four placenames—mostly of well-known towns—in a later list. By now two inland towns, Shechem and Jerusalem, had become major centers as key points on the King’s Highway.
Following the Hyksos invasion, in the 18th cent. b.c., large towns with strong fortifications were added to or founded. The capital was Hazor, occupying an immense rectangular area of over 175 acres, surrounded by a huge ramp and was the largest Palestinian town ever built in the Biblical period. It is still difficult to determine without further excavation whether these large Hyksos centers were true towns or just great military camps with perhaps concentration of chariot forces. The El Amarna letters of the royal Egyp. archives of c. 1402-1347 b.c. make it possible to distinguish in the period between Egyp. garrisons, district capitals, and royal cities. Generally, the high density of towns in the coastal plain was such that each town ruled a small hinterland, whereas the more isolated towns in the interior hill lands tended to have a different political control of larger territories, often with a capital such as Shechem or Jerusalem controlling lesser towns and villages as well within its sphere of influence. Presumably, considerable areas of the interior hill lands were still forested and unoccupied.
Following the Israelite settlement in the land, possibly in the 13th cent. b.c., the tribes of Israel changed their way of life from dwellings in booths and tents, following the herds and flocks, to settled agriculture and town life. Sometimes, as at Bethel, an Israelite settlement was built upon the ruins of the Canaanite city soon after its destruction. At Ai, Mizpah and Shiloh, re-occupation of the ruined sites was delayed. Elsewhere the evidence suggests Israelite foundation of new settlements, e.g. Gibeah, Ramah and Geba. There is also evidence of small permanent settlements created in mountainous terrain, formerly forested, in upper Galilee, Edom, Moab and Ammon, in suitable clearings. Aharoni, who has made a detailed study of the Israelite settlement of the land, shows the importance of the preexisting network of Canaanite cities in influencing the invasion routes, stages of conquest and subsequent phases of colonization made by the Israelites. By the use of the water cistern and the deforestation of the interior hills with iron tools, the Israelites created a new pattern of settlement. Now the interior hills became a new focus of urban life, and Jerusalem eventually came into its own. The contrast between the strongly fortified Canaanite cities of the coast and the small, poorly defended Israelite settlements at the beginning of the conquest of the land, was later reinforced by the invasion of the Philistines from the sea in the 12th cent. b.c. Three of the Philistinian cities were on the Via Maris: Gaza, Ashkelon and Ashdod and two in the Shephelah: Gath and Ekron. Their threat led to concerted action from the Israelite tribes to the founding of the monarchy, and in the establishment of Jerusalem as a national capital in the eighth year of David’s reign.
The significance of Jerusalem as a royal capital was its federal significance. A Jebusite fortress, David had captured it, and so it was neutral territory in relation to all of the rival tribes, each of whom might have quarreled over the choice of the site of the national capital. Hebron, David’s first capital (2 Sam 5:5) could never have provided the necessary cohesion. Later, it was shared with Samaria as capital of the northern kingdom (1 Kings 4:7-19). Some of the administrative districts were named after towns (Josh 13:25-27), others were named after tribes, and it may be that this presented an internal tension that was never resolved. The town districts were essentially in the Canaanite areas conquered by David, where the major cities flourished. The unfair taxation of Judah vis-a-vis the conquered territories led to the revolt that broke up the kingdom (cf. 1 Kings 4:21-24) in the reign of Rehoboam. The list of fortresses referred to in 2 Chronicles 11:5-12, describes the nature of the defense of his kingdom. The town list of Joshua 15:21-62 dividing Judah into twelve districts was an ancient and hallowed one that was eventually cancelled in the reign of Hezekiah, who regrouped them into four Judean districts. Though depleted of territory and population, these remained the frame of civic administration during the Exile and the Pers. period.
Compared to the 1800 acres of Nineveh and even the 240 acres of Carchemish, the cities of the OT in Pal. were small. However, there is the archeological problem of identifying the walls and actual sites of many of the ancient towns. For example, there is still little positive evidence for the course of the walls of Jerusalem until post-Biblical times. If George Adam Smith is right in advocating that “David’s burgh” was on the southeastern hill or Ophel, then it was no more than fourteen acres. I. W. J. Hopkins suggests the City of David on this site may have had about 3000 inhabitants. If the “Millo” which David and Solomon built (2 Sam 5:9; 1 Kings 9:15) is the terraces which expanded on the SE hill, then this could have been the next expansion outside the town to be included with new walls. Many scholars have believed that the SW hill was included into Jerusalem some time after the reign of Solomon. Dr. Kenyon’s excavations here found no evidence of this, though there is evidence for a northward expansion, influenced by the presence of the Temple and the main trade routes out of the city. Even Nehemiah’s Jerusalem was about the same size within the walls as that of Solomon, but with some slight adjustment to the lines of defenses. Possibly the immediate postexilic Jerusalem might have had 12,000 people.
The other cities of Pal. also had modest proportions in OT times. The area of Lachish did not exceed fifteen acres, while Gezer at its greatest expansion was no more than twenty-three acres, the circuit of its outer wall being some 1500 yards. Taanach and Megiddo each occupied twelve to thirteen acres.
Four characteristics of the Biblical cities have influenced their sites, locations and morphology. First, is the stronghold character of so many of the towns. In Leviticus 25:31 the village (חָצֵר֒, H2958) is distinguished from the city by its having no walls. The walled fortifications of cities are often impressive, and the common term ’ir often is used in the restricted sense of a fortress. Larger settlements had their “strong tower within the city” such as Thebez (Judg 9:51). There are frequent allusions to the high walls, towers, and gates of the city (Num 13:28; Deut 3:5; Josh 2:5, 15; 6:5; Neh 3:1-3, 11, 25). The gate was a massive structure, often with a room over the gateway (2 Sam 18:33), and with guards on the roof of the towers and gateways (18:24; 2 Kings 9:17). The city walls were very thick, and twenty to thirty ft. were not unusual. At Shechem, “the uncrowned capital of Palestine” (Alt), excavations have revealed a sequence of walls which well illustrates the technology of fortification of cities. The Pre-Hyksos walls are free standing brick walls on stone sockets, c. 2.5 to 2.85 meters thick (c. 1750-1725 b.c.). This was succeeded by great earthen embankments of the Early Hyksos (c. 1725-1700 b.c.), and then followed by the cyclopean walls with great stone boulders. In the course of these stages of fortification, the configuration of the natural contours of these typical hill-top towns was altered significantly, levelled flat on top for the town, the slopes deliberately steepened, and flanked with great artificial ramps. This is typical of the chariot fortress towns of the Iron Age, notably seen in Megiddo, Taanach, Beth-Haccherem, Beth-Shean and Debir.
In contrast to the impressive works of fortification the houses of Palestinian towns were generally small, and the streets very narrow. The street layout was a maze of crooked causeways and blind alleys. The only broad places (Neh 8:1, 3, 16; Jer 5:1) were at the intersection of main roads and especially near the city gates. At these public places, notably at the city gate, public business was transacted, law cases adjudicated, and markets were held (Gen 23:10; Ruth 4:1-11; 2 Sam 15:2; 1 Kings 22:10; 2 Kings 7:1; and Neh 8:1). Some streets were devoted to bazaars (1 Kings 20:34; Jer 37:21).
A third trait of Palestinian towns was the sanctity of sites either as the origin of the settlement, or its long association with the town. “High places” or sanctuaries were commonly associated in Canaanite times with the veneration of springs of water and mountain tops, both topographic features of significance for later urban populations. At Gezer, Taanach and other excavated sites, rock surfaces pitted with cup marks of a sacrificial function have been laid bare, flanked by pillars of unhewn stone (Deut 12:3; Hosea 10:1). In Biblical times we have reference to the continued importance of such sacred centers: Bethel during the time of the Judges (Judges 20:18), Shiloh at a later period (1 Sam 7:16; 10:3) and then Jerusalem. Some were sites of special fortress-temples or Migdal, identifiable sometimes by this term used as a prefix to place names (Gen 32:30-32; Exod 14:2; Josh 15:37; 19:38; Judg 8:8, 9, 17).
Finally, as water supply in an arid or semiarid climate was so essential, one or more springs in the vicinity of these towns was vital (Gen 24:11). Mesha, king of Moab, narrates in one inscr. how, as there was “no cistern in the midst of a certain city, he said to all the people: make you each a cistern in his house.” Such private systems of cisterns are characteristic of towns like Qu’ram, Masada and other excavated sites of eastern Judea. Conduits and water tunnels too are typical of the Iron Age fortresses such as those discovered at Megiddo, Shechem, and Jerusalem. These were built for impressive distances, linking springs outside the defense system into the city, and becoming a standard technique for chariot fortresses (2 Kings 20:20).
3. Cities in the NT. During the Maccabean wars, many of the Palestinian towns lost their fortification walls and were in ruins. When the Romans took control of the country after 63 b.c., and esp. after the great town builder and client, King Herod, held office (37-34 b.c.), cities were transformed and several created. Samaria, renamed Sebaste (Augusta), was reconstructed with new walls and towers enclosing an irregular oval nearly five-eighths of a m. in width. A huge temple over 225 ft. long was built, with the Forum on the E side of the temple. Caesarea, on the coast between Mt. Carmel and Joppa took twelve years to build (25-13 b.c.) and its extensive site has not yet been systematically excavated. For most of the period a.d. 6-66, it was the seat of the Rom. government in the country, where Paul was tried before Festus and Herod Agrippa (Acts 25:23ff.) and where the conversion of the Rom. centurion (10:18, 22) led to the establishment of a Gentile church. According to Josephus the harbor at Caesarea was the equal, if not larger than that of Athens; the area of its arena was slightly larger than even that of the Colosseum in Rome.
By the time of Christ, the central fort of the city of Jerusalem was no longer on the lower hill of Ophel, S of the Temple area, where it had been in OT times. A new wall, built in the Hellenistic/Hasmonaean period, had been built to enclose extramural growth to the N of the old city. The alignment is obscure, though recent excavations by Dr. J. B. Hennessy seem to show that the line was approximately that of the present N wall. A new wall was begun about a.d. 42 in the reign of Herod Agrippa to enclose the suburb to the N which Josephus calls Bezetha. It was only completed, however, during the period of the first Jewish revolt in a.d. 66. The topography of Jerusalem also changed. For example, the Tyropoeon Valley, which used to separate the eastern from the western sections of the city, was filled up partially with the refuse of centuries. The valley intervening between the Temple and lower city was filled in, when the Maccabees built the fortress of Acra, and reduced the height of the site of the lower city. Later, Herod rebuilt a Maccabean fortress at the point where the second city wall approached the Temple enclosure and named it Antonia, in honor of Mark Antony. The court of the Antonia is paved with huge limestone blocks, that may be “The Pavement” (John 19:13). The Tower of Antonia was the place where Paul was imprisoned when he was rescued from the mob in the Temple (Acts 21:27ff.). Herod also rebuilt the Temple and provided it with an enlarged courtyard, the southeastern part of which had to be supported by columns and immense vaults (“Solomon’s Vaults”). A massive retaining wall was also built by Herod, of which the “Wailing Wall” on the W is typical (at least in its lower section). The Temple itself was one of the most magnificent in the classical world; and yet Jesus’ prophecy of its destruction was literally fulfilled (Mark 13:2) in a.d. 70 when the army of Titus laid waste the whole city. Jerusalem was not rebuilt until after a.d. 132 when the gentile Aelia, covering some 60-70 acres and possibly with 10-18,000 inhabitants, was a poor substitute for the former splendors of the holy city.
Herod the Great built a number of other splendid fortresses and palaces in Pal. at Ascalon, Herodium (S of Bethlehem), Masada, Machaerus, Qarn Sartabeh (N of Jericho), and Jericho. They reveal in their mosaics, stone masonry and other evidence, the opulence and prosperity of a wealthy period that collapsed after a.d. 70.
A distinct group of NT cities are the Hel. cities which came into existence in the 3rd and 2nd centuries b.c. in Trans-Jordan, and at Scythopolis (Beth-Shan). With the coming of the Romans, these ten cities were banded together into the Decapolis and placed under the political control of the Rom. governor in Syria. The strategic importance of this eastern flank of the Rom. frontier, and the preservation of Hel. vis-a-vis Sem. and Jewish interests, explain their identity (Matt 4:25; Mark 5:20; 7:31). Among the best known of these towns are Gerasa (Jerash) and Philadelphia (’Amman), laid out as typical Hel. cities. Gadara, five m. SE of Lake Tiberias is, however, the only one connected with the ministry of our Lord, and even that reference is uncertain (Matt 8:28). For though Greeks came seeking for Him, the rural ministry of the gospels was to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (10:6).
Typical of the narrative of the gospels is the rural atmosphere of Judaea and the tetrarchies administered under the house of Herod and the procurators. As A. H. M. Jones has pointed out, the Ptolemaic system of villages, grouped into districts known as toparchies, prevailed in 1st cent. Pal. The village clerk administered the community as an official of the central government and the commandant controlled the whole of the toparchy. A large village—possibly an ’ir in origin—acted as the administrative center of the toparchy. These large villages often had the size of a city, with even 10-15,000 inhabitants, but with legal precision. Mark, for example, calls Bethsaida a village (Mark 8:22-27). Luke and Matthew do not concern themselves with the precision of Mark, using the two terms, “village” and “city” indiscriminately. To them Capernaum, Gadara and Bethsaida are “cities” (Matt 8:34; 9:1; 11:20-23; Luke 4:31; 9:10), possibly because they were the head villages of toparchies. The parable of the talents (Luke 19:17-20) is an allusion to this system of districts under the control of major villages. The judge in the gospel narratives is also a feature of the Judaean administration, doing what he likes in a very un-Rom. and un-Gr. way (Matt 5:25; Luke 12:58). Above him is the king, a petty tyrant, belonging to a world of satraps and other small rulers. That is to say, the Judaean atmosphere of the gospels is one of peasantry ruled by a succession of conquerors and their dependent princes. Towns were a matter of size rather than of a distinct form of government in the transitional period from the end of the 2nd cent. b.c. to the end of the 1st cent. a.d.
In the civic atmosphere of the Acts and the epistles, a very different structure is felt. There is seen the classical Gr. city development, where the people of the polis run their own municipal affairs, administered within their own territory. Their city councils are large, with 500-600 members in each major city. Citizens are enfranchised, and the sense of justice for the rights of the individual are reinforced in city life. However, whereas the Rom. cities of the western Mediterranean were by NT times an extension of Rome itself, the cities of the eastern provinces were more provincial, more Hel. in culture, with often only a minority of Romans in the cities, sometimes constituting a town within a town. In the Book of the Acts, Antioch, Lystra and Corinth have as many Hellenes and Jews as Romans in their streets (Acts 13:14; 16:2; 18:4). It is primarily within these Hellenized cities that the spread of Christianity takes place in a strategic awareness of the privileges and opportunities for the dissemination of the faith in these self-contained communities. Apart from Edessa beyond the Euphrates, the Church of the 1st cent. a.d. was restricted to the Rom. empire, and esp. to its major cities. Possibly most of the early Christians were concentrated in Asia Minor, where Jewish urban communities had long been stablished in trading centers, and had created around them a circle of half proselytized “God-fearing” Gentiles. It was in these latter circles that the Christian Gospel took effect.
The cities of the NT are much more diverse in character. In place of a long Sem. continuity, the rigid bureaucracy of Rom. military towns and colonial cities, the more open character of the Gr. city states each with its own character, and the hybrid features of the oriental cities of Asia Minor and Syria, provide a growing complexity of detail in the city life of Christian missionary enterprise. Hints of diverse environmental detail are touched upon in the letters to the seven churches (Rev 1-3). Cities too are much larger, many of them formally planned either in Hel. or Rom. style. (See also articles on City authorities, and on major cities.)
Bibliography On the origins of urban life in the Near E., an anthropological approach is that of R. McC. Adams, The Evolution of Urban Society (1966). See also V. G. Childe, New Light on the Most Ancient East (1952); R. J. Braidwood and G. R. Willey (ed.), Courses Towards Urban Life, Viking Fund Publications in Anthropology, No. 32 (1962); K. M. Kenyon, Archaeology in the Holy Land (1965). The best study on town life and its organization in Biblical times is Y. Aharoni, The Land of the Bible, a Historical Geography (1967); The standard work on the Hel. cities is A. H. M. Jones, Cities of the Eastern Roman Provinces (1937); G. E. Wright, Biblical Archaeology (1957); and A. N. Sherwin-White, Roman Society and Roman Law in the New Testament (1963).
For individual town studies, the following are useful: W. M. Ramsay, The Cities of St. Paul (1907), or paperback edition (1960); G. A. Smith, Jerusalem 2 vols. (1907); K. M. Kenyon, Digging Up Jericho (1957); G. E. Wright, Shechem, the Geography of a Biblical City (1965); C. F. Pfeiffer (ed), The Biblical World (1966); W. D. Thomas (ed.), Archaeology and Old Testament Study (1967); I. W. J. Hopkins, Jerusalem, a Study in Urban Geography (1970).