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Horse Gate

buildingOld TestamentJudea3 verses
Today JerusalemCountry IsraelCoordinates 31.777, 35.234

Horse Gate 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 3 verses in Scripture.

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Archaeological Data
Occupation Phases
Chalcolithic4500 BCE – 3800 BCE
Early Bronze Age3800 BCE – 2500 BCE
Early Bronze Age I3800 BCE – 3050 BCE
Early Bronze Age II3050 BCE – 2850 BCE
Early Bronze Age III2850 BCE – 2500 BCE
Early Bronze Age IV/Middle Bronze Age I/Int. Bronze2500 BCE – 2000 BCE
Middle Bronze Age2000 BCE – 1550 BCE
Middle Bronze Age II-III1750 BCE – 1550 BCE
Iron Age I1150 BCE – 980 BCE
Iron Age II980 BCE – 539 BCE
Iron Age III (Persian)539 BCE – 333 BCE
Hellenistic333 BCE – 63 BCE
Roman63 BCE – 324 CE
Roman-Byzantine63 BCE – 638 CE
Byzantine324 CE – 638 CE
UnitoAssyrianGovernance, Villages to Empires Dataset (CC BY 4.0), doi:10.5281/zenodo.15111732

Biblical History

The Horse Gate was one of the named gates in the walls of ancient Jerusalem, situated on the eastern side of the city near the temple complex. It first appears in the account of Queen Athaliah's downfall, when the young king Joash was crowned and Athaliah was executed near the Horse Gate as she fled the temple (2 Kings 11:16; 2 Chronicles 23:15). This dramatic episode marked the restoration of the Davidic line and the purging of Baal worship from Judah. The gate appears again in Nehemiah's account of the wall rebuilding after the Babylonian exile, where the priests repaired the section of wall near the Horse Gate (Nehemiah 3:28). Jeremiah also references the Horse Gate in his prophecy of Jerusalem's future restoration, envisioning the rebuilt city extending from the Tower of Hananel to the Horse Gate as holy to the Lord (Jeremiah 31:38-40). The gate likely received its name from its proximity to the royal stables or its use for horses entering the temple area.

Archaeological & Historical Notes

The Horse Gate was located along the eastern wall of Jerusalem, likely near the southeastern corner of the Temple Mount, close to the Kidron Valley. Its exact position has been debated, but most scholars place it south of the temple complex, near where the Ophel meets the temple platform. Excavations by Kathleen Kenyon and later by Eilat Mazar in the Ophel area have uncovered portions of Nehemiah-era walls and earlier fortification systems in this vicinity. No gate structure has been definitively identified as the Horse Gate, as successive building periods in Jerusalem have obscured earlier features. The area today lies within the archaeological park south of the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.

Verse Appearances (3)

References

  1. Orr, J. (ed.) (1915) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance Company. [Public Domain]
  2. OpenBible.info (n.d.) Bible Geocoding. Available at: https://www.openbible.info/geo/. [CC BY 4.0]
  3. Bagnall, R. et al. (eds.) (n.d.) Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places. Available at: https://pleiades.stoa.org. [CC BY 3.0]
  4. Wikidata contributors (n.d.) Wikidata. Available at: https://www.wikidata.org. [CC0]
  5. Lawrence, D. et al. (2025) Villages to Empires: a settlement dataset for the Southern Levant. doi:10.5281/zenodo.15111732. [CC BY 4.0]
  6. Church of England (1769) The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. [Public Domain]

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