Gate of Ephraim
Gate of Ephraim is a structure mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Judea in modern-day Israel. Known today as Jerusalem. It appears across 4 verses in Scripture.
Biblical History
The Gate of Ephraim was one of the significant gates of Jerusalem's city wall, situated on the northern side of the city and facing toward the tribal territory of Ephraim to the north. It is mentioned across four Old Testament passages reflecting different periods of Jerusalem's history. In 2 Kings 14:13, the Israelite king Jehoash broke down a four-hundred-cubit section of Jerusalem's wall from the Gate of Ephraim to the Corner Gate, a devastating military humiliation of Judah. Nehemiah references the gate in his account of the post-exilic wall's dedication ceremony (Nehemiah 8:16; 12:39), when Levitical processions traversed the restored city walls in celebration. In 2 Chronicles 25:23, the same defeat of Amaziah by Jehoash of Israel is recorded with reference to the gate. The Feast of Tabernacles celebration described in Nehemiah 8:16 used the open area near the Gate of Ephraim as one of its gathering spaces, reflecting its central role in the city's civic and religious life.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
The Gate of Ephraim was located on the northern wall of Jerusalem, though its precise position has not been confirmed through excavation. Based on the biblical text's reference to four hundred cubits between the Gate of Ephraim and the Corner Gate (2 Kings 14:13), scholars estimate it lay roughly in the area of the northern sector of the First Wall. Nahman Avigad's extensive excavations in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City revealed substantial Iron Age and Second Temple period wall segments, but a gate matching the Gate of Ephraim's described location has not been definitively uncovered. The gate almost certainly fell out of use during later rebuilding phases that altered Jerusalem's northern wall alignment.
Verse Appearances (4)
References
- Orr, J. (ed.) (1915) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance Company. [Public Domain]
- OpenBible.info (n.d.) Bible Geocoding. Available at: https://www.openbible.info/geo/. [CC BY 4.0]
- Bagnall, R. et al. (eds.) (n.d.) Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places. Available at: https://pleiades.stoa.org. [CC BY 3.0]
- Wikidata contributors (n.d.) Wikidata. Available at: https://www.wikidata.org. [CC0]
- Lawrence, D. et al. (2025) Villages to Empires: a settlement dataset for the Southern Levant. doi:10.5281/zenodo.15111732. [CC BY 4.0]
- Church of England (1769) The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. [Public Domain]