God’s Word for You

2 Chronicles 26:9-10 Towers and cisterns

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Wednesday, May 7, 2025

9 Uzziah built towers in Jerusalem at the Corner Gate, at the Valley Gate, and at the Angle, and he fortified them. 10 He also built towers in the wilderness. He dug many cisterns because he had large herds, both in the lowlands and in the highlands, and he had farmers and vineyard workers in the hill country and in the fertile lands, for he loved the soil.

These two verses describe how King Uzziah built towers and cisterns. Perhaps the writer is saying that he fortified Judah “from high to low.” First, within Jerusalem, he built towers on the upper and lower ends of the city. The old City of David was shaped very roughly like a slender V pointing downward. At the top of the V on the left side was the Corner Gate (see Nehemiah 12:38-39 and recall 2 Chronicles 25:23). Then, about halfway down on the left side was what my dad would call a jog in the wall, an indentation. The Valley Gate was at this place, about 500 yards above the southernmost point of the city, where there was another gate called the Dung Gate (this is all in Nehemiah 3:13). Across the slender “V” from the Valley Gate, on the right (east) side, was a bend in the wall that made it go from its angled direction to just about truly north-south for another hundred yards. This angle was known, of course, as the Angle (Nehemiah 3:19-20). All of these improvements made the city stronger and safer in times of war, and an important siege of the city was going to take place after Uzziah’s time (Isaiah 36:2).

He built other towers out in the desert. The term midbar can be translated either desert or wilderness. Both words mean an uninhabited region, either overgrown with trees, bushes, vines, and other things making travel difficult, or else a waterless region devoid of almost any growing things at all. In this case, something in-between is probably meant. Judah was and is not really a sandy desert, but more of a dry grassland with trees and streams here and there. The purpose of the towers, both in the city and out in the grassland, was to provide weapons, food, water, and a base with shade for soldiers on duty. A tower also provided one of the more useful forms of communication, since both banners and signal fires could be seen and used from the tops of the towers (Psalm 60:4). Such fires were also used to ignite flaming arrows (Isaiah 50:11; Psalm 76:3).

Cisterns were and still are reservoirs that catch rainwater where there is no available spring. Cisterns appear in many parts of the Old Testament (Genesis 37:20; 1 Samuel 13:6, 19:22; 2 Kings 18:31; Jeremiah 38:6-13 and Jeremiah 41:7-9). Due to contamination or other damage, they might need to be replaced from time to time. Uzziah was being prudent even with Judah’s water supply, and he needed to provide for increasingly larger and larger herds and their herdsmen.

We might notice in passing that the lowlands or Shephelah were the low plains near the Mediterranean coast. The highlands or Mishor were the high plains in the hills above the Arnon Gorge and other places, such as the flat hilltop where Jacob wrestled the angel of the Lord (Genesis 32:24). The hill country ran all through central Judah, north and south, with the mountains around Jerusalem as an example. The fertile lands is, in Hebrew, the word “carmel,” but here it does not mean the mountain (which was in Israel in the northwest) but the sort of fruitful land that was excellent for vines and fruit trees, like the freshly harvested foods described in Leviticus 2:14.

Uzziah “loved the soil” just as Noah did (Genesis 9:20). He realized that a fertile land was a blessing from God, and that caring for every part of his kingdom—not just his own dinner table—was his responsibility. Here we have seen that he was building up the kingdom from high to low, from tower to cistern, and watching out for the care of growing flocks and herds. Having such things is not just boasting about them, or seeing the profit from them, but caring for them and watching out for them.

“The righteous man cares for the needs of his animal” (Proverbs 12:10), and “wisdom is better than weapons of war” (Ecclesiastes 9:18). But Uzziah would take pains to look after his weaponry, too, as a precaution.

In the springtime, it’s time to check and look after our tools, rakes, hoes, shovels, gardening things, lawn mowers, and even the stakes and other things necessary for gardens and flowers, and all the different needs of our land or our little flower boxes. We do our best with the tiny kingdom that the Lord has granted to each of us, whether it’s hundreds of acres of field and pasture or a single potted plant in the window. We take care of the blessings God gives to us. And if we look after the little growing things, how much more must we look after the people in our lives, including their needs, their spiritual necessities, and their regular feeding from the word of God! We need to bring ourselves and our people to the Spring of living water.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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