The Broad Place (
Ne 8:1,
3,
16;
Jer 5:1) seems to have been, usually, immediately inside the city gate. It was not, in early Jewish cities, an extensive open area, but simply a widening of the street, and was designated "broad" by comparison with the neighboring alleys, dignified by the name of street. It took the place of a general exchange. Justice was dispensed (
Ru 4:2) and punishment was administered. Jeremiah was put in "the stocks that were in the upper gate of Benjamin" (
Jer 20:2), proclamations were read, business was transacted, and the news and gossip of the day were exchanged. It was a place for all classes to congregate (
Job 29:7 m;
Pr 31:23), and was also a market-place (
2Ki 7:1). In later times, the market-place became more typically a market square of the Greek agora plan, with an open area surrounded by covered shelters. The present market-place at Haifa resembles this. Probably it was this type of market-place referred to in
Mt 11:16;
20:3 and
Lu 7:32;
11:43. The street inside the Damascus gate of Jerusalem today is, in many ways, similar to the Broad Place, and retains many of its ancient uses. Here, Bedouin and Fellahin meet from the outlying districts to barter, to arbitrate, to find debtors and to learn the news of the day. Lying as it did immediately inside the gate, the Broad Place had a defensive value, in that it admitted of concentration against the forcing of the gate. There does not seem to have been any plan of either a Canaanite or early Jewish city, in which this question of defense did not predominate. Open areas within the city were "waste places" (
Isa 58:12) and were not an integral part of the plan.