“This is a strong, but not unusual hyperbole.... At this early time, as well as now, it was customary to surround towns with very high walls. Few towns of the least consequence in Western Asia are without walls, which, whatever be their character in other respects, are sure to be lofty. As the use of artillery is still but little known, when a town has a wall too high to be easily scaled, and too thick to be easily battered down, the inhabitants look upon the place as impregnable, and fear little except the having their gates forced or betrayed, or being starved into surrender. So little indeed is the art of besieging known in the East, that we read of great Asiatic conquerors being obliged, after every effort, to give up the attempt to obtain possession of walled towns.... It is, therefore no wonder that the, at this time, unwarlike Hebrew shepherds regarded as insurmountable the obstacles which the walls of the Canaanitish cities seemed to offer. Indeed, of all classes of people, there are none in the world so unequal as the nomade dwellers in tents to overcome such an obstacle. However brave and virtuous in the field, all their energy and power seem utterly to fail there before a walled town.
The walls of towns and are generally built with large bricks, dried in the sun, though sometimes of burnt bricks, and are rarely less than thirty feet high. They are seldom strong and thick in proportion to their height, but are sometimes strengthened with round towers or buttresses, placed at equal distances from each other.”—Kitto.