Bible Dictionary
BANK
A bank may mean the edge of a river, an overflowed riverbank, a siege mound, or a military embankment or palisade. Biblical usage therefore includes both natural river margins and structures raised during warfare.
Definition
A bank may be the edge of a river, an overflowed river margin, or a raised structure used in warfare. Biblical usage also applies the word to a mound, rampart, palisade, or entrenchment built by besiegers. In one poetic passage it may refer to trellised plants or towers of perfumes.
Biblical Usage
The Bible uses bank for the margins of the Jordan and other rivers, for banks overflowed by water, and for siegeworks cast up against cities. The term’s meaning depends on its context.
Historical Background
Military banks could consist of stakes strengthened with branches and earth, with a ditch behind them, providing protection against arrows or attacking parties. Such works were used in ancient sieges, including the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70.
Historical Bible Dictionaries
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)
<p>bank:</p><p>(1) (saphah, "lip," "edge"): "By the bank of the Jordan" (2Ki 2:13); "Upon the bank of the river were very many trees" (Eze 47:7,12).</p><p>(2) (gadhah, "cuttings"): Always of banks overflowed (Jos 3:15; 4:18; Isa 8:7), as also</p><p>(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 2Ki 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.).</p><p>(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).</p><p>(6) BANK; BANKING (which see).</p><p>M. O. Evans</p>