Road

The word "road" in the KJV Old Testament appears only once in its modern sense, in 1 Samuel 27:10, where Achish asks David "whither have ye made a road today?" — using "road" in the older English sense of a raid or foray. In the ancient Near East, roads were not paved highways but beaten paths, trade routes, and military roads that connected cities and regions. The Romans later built an extraordinary network of paved roads throughout the empire — the viae — which facilitated the rapid spread of the gospel in the first century (Acts 28; Romans 15:19). The Old Testament speaks of "the way" (Hebrew derek) extensively, both literally and theologically: Israel traveled the way of the wilderness, the king's highway, and the way of Shur; God's ways are above human ways (Isaiah 55:8–9), and the path of righteousness is the way of life (Proverbs 12:28).