Image Details

A.D. RIDDLE / BIBLEPLACES.COM

EMINENT DOMAIN. As northern refugees moved southward, the population of Judah expanded dramatically. This was especially true in Jerusalem, where the late eighth century BCE saw the rapid construction of simple dwellings on the city’s largely unsettled and undefended Western Hill. Shortly thereafter, as the Assyrians encroached from the north, King Hezekiah quickly built a circuit fortification—the remains of which are known today as the Broad Wall—that enclosed this western area. In order to complete the project, however, many of the homes along the wall’s path had to be dismantled or destroyed. In the lower left of this photo, the remains of one such home are visible, with the Broad Wall itself constructed atop the underlying structure.