_The Building of Millo._--David having taken the stronghold of Zion improved his new capital by building “round about, from Millo and inward” (2 Sam. v. 9). What Millo was, or where it was located, has been one of the great puzzles of Jerusalem topography. It seems, however, to have been the great dam athwart the Tyropœon Valley. It is possible that even the Jebusites had hit upon the device and had constructed a dam in some rude fashion, and named it by a word of their own language, which afterwards clung to it. Sir G. Grove, in the “Dictionary of the Bible,” conjectures that it was the Jebusites who first built Millo, because it is difficult to assign a meaning to the word in Hebrew, while the Canaanites of Shechem also had a Millo (Judges ix. 6, 20), and because David seems to find it existing and not to build it. The statement that David built from Millo and _inward_ suits very well the identification of Millo with the great dam which was the outer defence of the Tyropœon, and to a great extent of Zion itself. It is not unlikely either that the House of Millo was a castle on the Ophel Hill, close to the eastern end of the dam, and that this was adopted by David as a residence. He may also have strengthened both the castle and the dam. This view of mine has now been adopted by Herr Schick. (See _Quarterly Statement_, January 1892, p. 22.) But it was Solomon who so strengthened this work as to deserve the credit of having constructed it. It was one of the great works for the accomplishment of which he made a levy upon all parts of the kingdom (1 Kings ix. 15). The nature of the work is indicated in 1 Kings xi. 27--“Solomon built Millo (and so) closed up the fissure (or cleft) of the city of David his father:” either the two expressions relate to the same work, or the two works are closely associated together. Accordingly, before the work can be begun, Pharaoh’s daughter must vacate the house of Millo. She came up “out of the City of David unto her house which Solomon had built for her: then did he build Millo” (1 Kings ix. 24). The Israelites employed upon the work were the children of Joseph, and their superintendent was Jeroboam, an Ephraimite, probably already acquainted with the similar work at Shechem (1 Kings xi. 28). It is stated in the Septuagint that Jeroboam completed the fortifications at Millo, and was long afterwards known as the man who had “enclosed the City of David.” The work was so well done that Jerusalem was never again attacked from this side, although previously this side was found the most vulnerable, both by David and by the children of Simeon and Judah in earlier time.