What is the matter at this part of the wall?
The work does not get on as it should.

They seem to have no leaders, these people of Tekoa, and to have a long stretch of wall, and but few hands to build it.

We ask how this is, and we find that some in Tekoa have shirked the work (ver.

5): 'Their nobles put not their necks to the work of their Lord.' They have been like oxen, too idle to draw the plough, which have pulled their necks from under the yoke, and have stubbornly refused to go forward.

So have these nobles of Tekoa stood aloof, too proud to work side by side with the common people of the village, or too idle to join in anything which requires continuous effort; they have left their poorer neighbours to bear the burden alone, and to do it or not as they please.
We are now passing the Old Gate, on the north of the city, the Damascus Gate of modern days, from which goes the great northern road to Samaria and Galilee.
The men of Gibeon and Mizpah, whose villages lay near together, we find next on the wall, working side by side as neighbours should, and building the part of the wall which faced their own homes, two villages standing on the hills about five miles from the northern gate.
Coming round the city we find ourselves passing the Gate of Ephraim and the Broad Wall.