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.