Middle Gate
Middle 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 1 verse in Scripture.
Biblical History
The Middle Gate of Jerusalem appears in a single but dramatically significant passage, Jeremiah 39:3, which describes the fall of Jerusalem to Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian forces in 586 BC. When the Babylonians breached the city walls, all the officials of the king of Babylon came and sat in the Middle Gate: Nergal-sharezer, Samgar-nebo, Sarsechim the Rabsaris, Nergal-sharezer the Rabmag, and all the other officials. Their occupation of the Middle Gate symbolized the complete conquest of Jerusalem and the end of Judean independence. The gate's name suggests it was located between the upper and lower portions of the city, possibly at a central point in Jerusalem's fortification system. The Babylonian commanders' choice to establish themselves at this gate likely reflected its strategic and symbolic importance as a seat of authority. This grim scene marks one of the most devastating moments in Israelite history, the fulfillment of prophetic warnings that Jerusalem would fall because of persistent unfaithfulness. The Middle Gate thus became the place where Judah's political sovereignty visibly ended and the exile began.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
The exact location of the Middle Gate within ancient Jerusalem has not been definitively identified. Scholars have proposed various locations based on the topography of the City of David and the Temple Mount area. One theory places it at the junction between the old City of David and the northern expansion of the city, possibly in the area of the Tyropoeon Valley that divided the eastern and western hills. Extensive excavations in Jerusalem by Kathleen Kenyon, Yigal Shiloh, Eilat Mazar, and others have uncovered significant sections of Iron Age walls and gates, but none has been conclusively identified as the Middle Gate. The ongoing complexity of Jerusalem's archaeological stratigraphy makes definitive identification challenging.
Verse Appearances (1)
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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]