Nehemiah 3

BUILDING OF THE GATES AND WALLS, AND NAMES OF THE BUILDERS, Nehemiah 3:1-32. “In regard to the gates of ancient Jerusalem, there exists so much uncertainty that it would seem to be a vain undertaking to investigate the relative positions of them all. Of the ten or twelve gates enumerated in the Book of Nehemiah and other parts of the Old Testament, Reland remarks with truth, that it is uncertain, first, whether they all were situated in the external walls, or, perhaps, lay partly between the different quarters of the city itself, as is common even now in Oriental cities; secondly, whether some of them were not gates leading to the temple, rather than out of the city; and, again, whether two or more of the names enumerated may not have belonged to the same gate. Indeed, it is certain that there must have been gates forming a passage between the upper and lower city, and we know that there were several on the western side of the area of the temple. There must also have been a gate and way leading, probably, from Akra to the quarter south of the temple, passing perhaps beneath the bridge. But of all those gates who can ascertain the names?

“It must, however, be borne in mind that all the accounts in the Old Testament relate to the city only as bounded on the north by the ‘ second wall’ of Josephus. There can, of course, be no allusion to any of the gates of the subsequent third wall. Hence the suggestion, for example, that the present gate of St. Stephen may correspond to the ancient sheep gate, is wholly untenable, since apparently, until the time of Agrippa, no wall existed in that quarter.

“The chief passages relating to the gates and walls of the ancient city are found in the Book of Nehemiah, and these are occasionally illustrated by other incidental notices. It is obvious, in the account of the rebuilding of the walls by Nehemiah, that the description begins at the sheep gate, and proceeds first northwards, and so towards the left around the city, till it again terminates at the same gate.… The ten gates mentioned Nehemiah chap. iii are the following: the sheep gate, fish gate, old gate, valley gate, dung gate, fountain gate, water gate, horse gate, east gate, and gate Miphkad. Also in chap. Nehemiah 12:39, we find the prison gate, (perhaps the same with Miphkad,) and the gate of Ephraim. Then, again, mention is made of the corner gate, (2 Chronicles 25:23,) and the gate of Benjamin. Jeremiah 37:13. The latter is probably the same as the gate of Ephraim. Josephus mentions further the gate called Gennath, near to the tower of Hippicus, and that of the Essenes, on the south part of the city.” Robinson.