This is every wall in the entire Bible, starting with the walls
of Jericho. Look down here in the Jordan
Valley, because you're about to see not only the lowest city in
the world, but a city that is hiding one very dark secret.
It's 1400 BC and the people of Jericho are worshipping one very
evil God. So let's see if you can catch
it. What do you see when you see
this, this, and this? You're right, it's the moon God
Yarek. But did you notice this?
The Hebrew name for the city, Yeraho or Jericho to us
literally means Moon City. So in other words, these massive
walls were built specifically to contain and protect the ancient
world's epicenter of lunar worship.
OK, so here enters Joshua into this insane situation, and it is
important to remember the Israelites.
They had been wandering in the desert for 40 years and when
they finally arrived at their promised land, it was pretty
discouraging. Why?
Because here they were face to face with the daunting fortress
of Jericho. Take a look at this.
Archaeologists have reconstructed diagrams of what
these overbearing structures would have looked like.
I wonder, have you picked up on this double wall system?
Here is a massive stone retaining wall at the base
topped by mud brick walls reaching 9 meters high.
I mean, think about it. To any soldier who wanted to
break in, this city seemed impossible.
There was no chance they were getting inside.
However, Bible records that Jericho fell not by battering
Rams, but by following the instructions of the Lord.
Under the leadership of Joshua, the Israelites marched silently
around the city once a day for six days, led by priests who
were carrying the Ark of the Covenant.
On the 7th day, they circled the city 7 times.
Then at the final signal, a long blast from the Ramhorn
chauffeurs were sounded alongside a collection shout
from the people. And just like that, these
massive walls collapsed outward, allowing the Israelite to charge
straight in. You're not going to believe
this, but amidst the total destruction, a single section of
the wall remained standing. This was the home of Rahab, a
woman who had shown faith by hiding Israelite spies earlier
in the story to keep them safe. Incredibly, this woman, who
lived a pretty wild lifestyle, would obey the spies
instructions to hang a scarlet cord from her window so that
they could escape. This actually proved that she
had faith in the one true God, and so she and her family were
kept safe from the Lord's judgement when it fell upon
Jericho. I'm not going to lie, this next
discovery for me personally was very surprising.
In the 1930s and 50s, excavators like John Garstang and Kathleen
Kenyon discovered that the mud bricks didn't fall inward as if
pushed by an invader, they tumbled outward.
This is so clever because it created a perfect literal ramp
of debris over the stone retaining wall, allowing the
Israelites to walk right up into the city.
Even more startling was the discovery of charred jars
overflowing with grain. In ancient warfare, grain was
known as black gold, and it always was looted.
Yet here it sat untouched and burned.
And this confirms the biblical account that the siege was
miraculously short and that the soldiers were strictly forbidden
by God not to plunder the city, leaving it as a burnt offering.
And get this, after the fire, the city sat abandoned for
centuries, exactly matching the curse Joshua placed on the
ruins. All right, let's zoom on
Jerusalem because its earliest defenses were built like a stone
jigsaw puzzle, starting over 3000 years ago in the City of
David. Whilst most ancient cities
relied on massive gates, King David famously captured
Jerusalem by thinking like a plumber rather than a general.
His soldiers reportedly climbed through a secret vertical water
shaft, a tunnel. This was planned so that they
could bypass the city's high limestone walls and take the
stronghold from inside. If you've ever considered
visiting Jerusalem, you might want to listen to this because
today visitors to the City of David National Park can actually
explore these passages, including the narrow tunnels
where archaeologists discovered ancient oil lamps left behind by
the people when they were hiding during the later wars.
Now let's start across to ancient Persia, because in 445
BC we meet a man named Nehemiah who had one of the world's most
dangerous jobs. He was the official cupbearer to
Artaxerxes, the king of Persia. This meant he had to taste the
King's wine before every meal to make sure it hadn't been
tampered with. Now it doesn't take a genius to
realise because he literally risked his life every day, the
king trusted him completely. So when Nehemiah heard that his
ancestral home of Jerusalem was in ruins with its walls smashed,
he asked for help. The king didn't just give him
permission to go, he gave him a royal security and the best
building materials in the empire to fix the city.
When Nehemiah arrived back in Jerusalem, the destruction was
so bad that his horse couldn't even walk through the piles of
broken stone. Instead of giving up, he snuck
out at night to map the damage in secret, planning a massive
construction project. He organized the local families
into teams, and the Bible even lists exactly which family fixed
which section of the wall. For a long time, many historians
were very skeptical, and they weren't so sure about this
construction project. Was it real, or was it just a
story? Because there was no actual
physical proof of a wall during that specific time period.
But then everything changed in 2007, when an archaeologist
named Doctor Eliot Massar made a very unexpected discovery.
She began digging at a crumbly old tower that most people
ignored, thinking it was built much later in history.
But as she dug, she found pottery and artifacts from the
Persian period, the exact time that Nehemiah lived.
It's so strange, though, because it wasn't a fancy, perfect
tower. It was built very roughly and in
a massive hurry, which matches the Bible story perfectly of
Nehemiah Wall, which says Nehemiah and his team of regular
families finished the entire city wall in just 52 days
because they were under constant tension, looking over their
shoulder every 5 seconds to make sure that nothing bad would
happen to them. Guys, I'm not sure we realized
just how high the stakes were whilst trying to complete this
project. Enemies mocked the workers,
joking that if a tiny fox jumped on the wall, the whole thing
would fall over. Eventually, the risk would
become so great that Nehemiah and his builders had to work
with one tool in one hand and a sword in the other.
Now, interestingly, clues were left in the ground that also
backs up the villains of the story.
Researchers found ancient carvings that show the names of
Nehemiah's enemies like Geshem, which is spelled exactly the
same way as the Bible spells them.
But come on now, we need to trek over to Jerusalem's Old City to
the northern edge of the Jewish quarter.
Because more than 100 years before Nehemiah, Jerusalem faced
an even scarier risk, the massive Assyrian army.
To prepare for the invasion, King Hezekiah built the broad
Wall, a defensive giant that was 23 feet thick, roughly the width
of A2 lane highway or motorway. You can still see the remaining
of the broad wall in Jerusalem's Jewish quarter today, where some
ancient houses were actually crushed to make room for it.
But Hezekiah knew that even the strongest walls wouldn't matter
if the people ran out of water during a siege.
To solve this, he ordered an incredible engineering project,
a 1700 foot long tunnel carved through solid rock to hide the
city's water supply from the enemy.
But if you thought that was impressive, it's nothing
compared to this. In 1880, archaeological found a
secret message carved into the tunnel wall.
It's now called the Siloam inscription, which describes 2
teams of diggers working from opposite ends and meeting in the
middle by following the sound of each other's hammers.
When the Assyrian king Sennacherib finally attacked, he
bragged in his own royal record that he trapped Hezekiah like a
bird in a cage. But he never actually captured
the city. And again, you yourself could
even walk through this secret 3000 year old escape hatch if
you want it. And you can see the literal burn
marks left behind by the Babylonian fires that levelled
the city in 586 BC. You can also touch the very
pickaxe marks left by the workers thousands of years ago
as they raced to save their city from destruction.
Just a little diversion because I know exactly what you're
thinking. This is by far the most random
video the YouTube algorithm has served me today.
But I do wonder if there's anyone thinking this is the wall
video that I never knew I needed.
Well if that's you and you appreciate ad for free content
like this, please do subscribe for more.
After the famous victory at Jericho, Israel comes to IA
small fortified city east of Bethel and at first it all goes
wrong. Joshua 7 tells us Israel is
beaten not because I is strong, but because sin has crept into
the camp in the form of 1 disobedient Israelite who had
hidden forbidden treasures beneath his tent.
What happened next? Well, suddenly those walls that
initially look small became impossible to conquer because
God wasn't with them, and he poured out judgment on the
entire camp too. Once this person's sin was
finally dealt with, Joshua 8 flips the whole story.
And this is where the walls really matter.
Because I isn't just a town, it's a proper little fortress
with thick defensive walls and a main gate facing north, exactly
what you'd expect for a border of a stronghold guarding the
hills. So Joshua sets a clever trap.
Part of the army hides in a nearby valley, Another force
pretends to run away. And when the king of I charged,
which is out through the gate, leaving the walls unguarded, the
hidden troops rush in, take the city and set it on fire.
Now here's the really fascinating bit.
For years, people said this couldn't have happened because
the site everyone pointed to, a place called Ettel, didn't match
any of the Bible's descriptions at all.
And even archaeologists admitted this was a problem.
But just a mile away, at a place called Kerbet El Mcateer,
everything suddenly clicks. It's in the right place east of
Bethel, near Bethel Avon, and it has the right landscape with a
high hill to the north where Joshua could camp, a shallow
valley where the king could see the decoy army, and a deep
ravine where the ambush could hide.
Not only that, it had all of the right stuff, thick fortification
walls about 13 feet wide, A4 chambered gate.
But most striking of all, the whole place was quickly burned
in 1400 BC, around that time period, exactly when the Bible
says I was destroyed, leaving it, as Joshua puts it, as a heap
of ruins. OK, we're going to navigate on
our map just north of Jerusalem to a city called Gibeon, because
this is one of the strangest wall stories in the whole Bible.
Not because the walls fall, but because they don't.
Again, it's around 1400 BC when Joshua and the Israelites arrive
in the land. Most cities would trust their
thick stone walls to protect them, but the people of Gibeon
try something completely different.
Instead of fighting, they pretend to be travellers from a
far off country, turning up with worn out clothes, crack sandals
and even mouldy stale bread, all to make it look like they've
been on the road for months. Their plan works.
Joshua believes them and he makes a peace agreement with
them. And it was only later he
actually realized that they lived only down the road.
Now listen to this. Even though the people of Gibeon
tricked Israel, their promise still stands.
And so their city and its walls were all amazingly spared.
But the story doesn't end there. Other kings here.
Gibeon has switched sides, so 5 armies March in to overrun it
and suddenly this quiet walled city is under real pressure.
Joshua and his army rush overnight to defend Gibeon, and
during the battle something astonishing happens.
According to Joshua 10, the daylight seems to last far
longer than normal, so the fighting doesn't stop when the
sun should have gone down. The text describes the sun and
the moon standing in place totally still, giving Israel
time to finish the battle. Why?
Because God has control over all things, even the rising and the
setting of the sun. Historically, Gibeon is
identified with El Jib, where archaeologists have uncovered
strong fortification walls, large water systems and storage
jars with the city's name showing.
This really was a major walled city, sitting exactly where the
Bible places it. Jump far north to Hatsaw, the
biggest and most powerful city in Canaan, often called the head
of all those kingdoms. And if Jericho was shocking,
Hatzaw is overweight. Filming in Joshua 11, Hatsaw
leads a northern coalition against Israel.
And this time there's no trick and there's no delay.
Joshua and his men quickly burn the city to the ground.
What makes Hatsaw remarkable is the scale.
It was enormous, heavily fortified and strategically
dominant. And excavations of Telhatsaw
have revealed a massive destruction layer from the Late
Bronze Age, with scorched palaces, collapsed walls, and
fire damage so intense that even the stones cracked.
Archaeologists like you, GAIL Yadin, noted statues
deliberately smashed and burned, matching the biblical emphasis
that Hatsaw was uniquely destroyed, not reused, and not
merely captured. Glide across to Megiddo with me
because we're about to see an enormous ancient site which was
formed by roughly 20 cities. And these cities were built
right on top of each other over thousands of years.
Megiddo sat at a crossroads where all the big trade roads
met. And here's the thing you
probably associate with this area tell Megiddo was one of the
most fought over spots in history.
So much so that thirty of the most famous battles actually
happened at its gates. In the Bible, King Solomon
turned it into a high tech chariot city building massive
walls, and a famous 6 chambered gate to protect its army's
horses. It's also no secret that because
so many kingdoms rose and fell there, the Bible uses its name
Armageddon, which just means Mount of Megiddo, and states
that there will be one final world end ending battle between
good and evil where all the nations of the world will March
to Armageddon to make war against Christ.
So infamous is this place that that great warrior Napoleon
Bonaparte once said about Armageddon.
There is no place in the whole world more suited for war than
this, the most natural battleground of the whole earth.
We need to journey over to the city of Samaria, which was built
on a steep hill like a giant stone fortress.
The king of Israel at the time, Jehoram, walked along the top of
the massive city walls to lookout over his people, and
when he heard how much they were struggling, doing unthinkable
things to survive, he tore his royal robes in grief, revealing
that he was wearing a rough sackcloth underneath.
To show his deep sadness, the prophet Elijah famously stepped
in and predicted a miracle. He promised that by the very
next day, the gates would be overflowing with affordable
food. Just as he said.
A small group of outcasts sitting outside the city gates
discovered that the enemy army had vanished in the middle of
the night, leaving all of their food and gold behind.
Despite its incredible strength, the city eventually faced a
final challenge in 722 BC when the powerful Assyrian Empire
showed up. The walls were so thick that it
took the Assyrians nearly three years of constant fighting to
finally breakthrough and conquer the capital.
Today archaeologists have dug up these very ruins and found that
the walls were built with case mates designs.
This basically means there was 2 giant parallel walls with rooms
inside them making the defences nearly 30 feet wide.
Now this is a little wild but you know the phrase ivory
towers? It actually originated first
from here in the Bible. The scripture talks about kings
living in luxury in these ivory towers.
In one Kings 22 and Amos 3. In these verses, it describes
palaces that were decorated with ivory, standing safely behind
massive city walls. And here these rich kings hid
themselves away from all the concerns of the world.
But gods brought these ivory towers down.
And check this out, because historians have found stunning
ivory carveries near the palace ruins in Samaria, backing this
account up even more. OK, so we've just cruised across
the world, and now we have arrived in Babylon, the city of
legends. And its walls were so enormous
and so stunning that early historians have included them
alongside the Hanging Gardens to make them one of the Seven
Wonders of the ancient World. King Nebuchadnezzar the Second
designed these defences to be invincible, meaning they were
almost impossible to breakthrough.
The fact is this, he built 2 sets of massive walls around the
city, with the outer one being so wide that 24 horse Chariots
could safely pass each other on the top.
But perhaps the most vibrant parts of the whole of Babylon
was the Ishtar Gates, a giant entrance covered in bright blue
glazed bricks and deca operated with golden carvings of Dragons
and bulls. Did you know that today we can
still see this gate because it was moved and rebuilt in the
Pergamum Museum in Berlin? And between you and me, this is
also the location where I know some of you claim is the
location of Satan's throne today.
But you also know that I offered you a completely different
location to where I think it is in this video here.
But I can assure you of one thing though.
Archaeologists have spent years studying these ruins, and in
2020, six They are using a cool new science called
archaeomagnetism. Why are they doing this?
Well, they just want to learn more.
And so by measuring magnetic signatures inside the ancient
mug bricks, scientists proved that the Ishtar Gate was built
in one big continuous project around 583 BC, right during the
time of what the Bible states was the time of Nebuchadnezzar.
This tells us that the walls weren't just a defence, they
were a massive billboard meant to proudly show the world how
powerful and how wealthy the Babylonian Empire had become
after they conquered all the other lands.
But hey now, the most famous story about these Babylonian
walls involves King Belshazzar. He was ruling the city while an
enemy army was waiting right outside the gates.
Belshazzar felt so safe behind his 300 foot tall walls that he
decided to throw a massive party for 1000 of his friends, even
using sacred gold cups taken from the temple in Jerusalem to
mock God. Suddenly, the fingers of a human
hand appeared and began writing mysterious words on the palace
wall. Terrified, King Belshazzar
called for the wise man, the man of God Daniel, who explained
that the Lord had sent the king a message that his days were
numbered and his Kingdom was over.
That very night, the enemy snuck into the city by drying up the
river that flowed under the palace walls, and the invincible
city of Babylon fell just as the writing on the wall had
predicted. Sweep over to the city of
Damascus with me because this intersection of ancient history
and biblical narrative is etched directly into the city.
Stone defences. During the 1st century, Damascus
was a heavily fortified Roman city, protected by massive
limestone walls and seven distinct.
It was here that the apostle Paul, formerly known as Saul of
Tarsus, would arrive with the intent to arrest Christians.
And yet something even bigger was going to happen.
Paul faced A radical transformation when he met the
risen Lord Jesus Christ on the road of Damascus.
According to the biblical accounts in Acts 9 and 2nd
Corinthians 11, Paul's bold preaching in the synagogues
eventually led to a death plot by the local authorities and the
governor under King Ariatus the 4th with the.
City gate under 24 hour guard. Paul's followers orchestrated a
daring nighttime escape. They lowered him in a large
basket through an opening in the city wall.
And as humbling as this moment was, it was successful.
He bypassed the guards and he saved his life.
And it's also worth noting that the escape site, the traditional
location of this escape is Bab Kisan, the Kisan Gate on the
southeastern side of the city. Now, whilst the current archway
dates to a later 14th century rebuild building, its base
contains original Roman blocks from Paul's era.
And today the ancient Chapel of Saint Paul is built directly
into this ancient gateway as a monument to remember this
events. Guys, we're just about to trail
off our earthly map and cross uncharted territory because in
the final chapters of the Book of Revelation, the New Jerusalem
is depicted as breathtaking as a city bride descending from
heaven, enclosed by a massive wall of Christmas still clear
Jasper that symbolizes eternal security and divine perfection.
This wall sits upon 12 foundations, each adorned with
different precious jewels ranging from sapphire to
emerald, and inscribed are the names of the 12 apostles.
The city itself is a perfect cube measuring approximately
1400 miles in length, width and height, a shape that mirrors the
Holy of Holies to signify that the entire city is God, its
direct dwelling place. Access is granted through 12
gates, each fashioned from a single giant Pearl and inscribed
with the names of the 12 tribes of Israel, and then there are
three gates positioned on each side of the city to welcome in
the nation's. Within these walls there is no
need for a temple, sun or moon, as the glory of God provides
constant radiant lights and the gates of this city never close
because the darkness of night and the threat of enemies have
been abolished forever. Now I can hear exactly what
you're thinking. Why did you make a video about
walls, Joe? Well, when you stop and think
about it, walls are everywhere, aren't they?
They hold things together. They protect what's valuable.
And in the Bible, walls are even described in a spiritual sense.
In Isaiah 60 it says, but you will call your walls salvation
and your gates praise. And then the Bible also says
something else. It says that you and I had a
barrier between US and God. In Ephesians 2, it called, was
it the dividing wall of hostility, our sins separating
us from Him. And yet Jesus came and broke
that wall down. The same Christ who walked on
the streets of Jerusalem, the same Christ who was taken
outside the city walls. And as Hebrew 13 tells us
plainly, Jesus suffered outside the gate to sanctify the people
through his own blood. And in the ancient world, being
outside those walls meant rejection.
It meant you're unclean. It meant you were cursed.
And yet the innocent one became cursed for you and I.
He bore in his body my wrongdoing and your wrongdoing.
All of our sins were laid on Him, and he paid the ultimate
price so that you and I can be forgiven, and so that our debt
of sin can be ripped up. But you want to hear something
else? That's pretty crazy.
It looked like at one point that hope itself had been walled in.
Christ was sealed in a tomb, guarded, locked behind stone.
But even death could not hold him down, as the Angel declared.
He is not here, He is risen. But to be honest with you, the
Bible verse that I most think about when I think about walls
in the Bible is Proverbs 25 verse 28.
It says a person without self-control is like a city
broken into and left without walls.
Without walls, a city has no protection.
Everything is up for grabs. And maybe that's you.
No power over sin, no peace, always being overrun.
But here's the invitation. Come to Jesus Christ right now.
Turn from your sin. Because when you receive him, He
not only forgives you, but his spirit comes and lives inside of
you, producing what Galatians 5 calls the fruits of the spirits.
And one of them is self-control. He becomes your salvation, your
protection, your new life. He was crucified outside the
city so that you could be brought in, forgiven, saved,
changed, and given a hope beyond the grave.
I mean, let's go back to the most beautiful city ever, the
New Jerusalem. And let me ask you the
$1,000,000 question. And it's this Will you see this
city when you leave earth? Will you see the New Jerusalem
because you've trusted in the King who will rule it, Christ
Jesus? Or on the other hand, will you
see another set of walls, the walls of outer darkness, because
you've rejected Him and the life that He offers to all those who
receive Him? Oh, I plead with you, come to
the Lord Jesus Christ and let Him war you around in His
forgiveness, His love, and His safety.
I am going to choose my words very carefully because I don't
want to finish this video on a negative note.
But the reality is there is another type of wall that we
haven't discussed one bit, and it's the walls of deception.
If you want to protect yourself from Satan's deception and you
do want to find out where is the location of Satan's throne on
Earth, you better check out this video right away.