North Gate
North 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 North Gate of the Jerusalem Temple appears in Ezekiel's vision as a significant architectural feature of the sacred complex. In Ezekiel 8:14, during the prophet's visionary tour of the Temple's abominations, God brings him to the entrance of the North Gate of the house of the LORD, where he witnesses women weeping for the Mesopotamian deity Tammuz. This idolatrous practice, imported from Babylonian religion, involved ritual mourning for the dying-and-rising vegetation god. The North Gate's association with this pagan worship made it a focal point of Ezekiel's condemnation of Judah's spiritual corruption. The gate also features in Ezekiel's detailed vision of the restored Temple (Ezekiel 40:35-37; 44:4; 46:9), where it serves liturgical functions in the ideal worship community. In the restored Temple vision, worshippers entering by the North Gate must exit through the South Gate and vice versa, ensuring orderly procession before the LORD. The North Gate thus transitions from a site of apostasy to a symbol of purified worship in Ezekiel's prophetic imagination.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
The North Gate described in Ezekiel's visions cannot be precisely located archaeologically, as both Solomon's Temple and its successor were destroyed, and the Temple Mount is now occupied by the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque, precluding excavation. Ezekiel's detailed architectural descriptions in chapters 40-48 have been studied extensively by scholars attempting to reconstruct the Temple's layout. The north side of the Temple Mount platform is accessible for limited archaeological investigation, and excavations by Benjamin Mazar and Eilat Mazar along the southern and western walls have revealed monumental architecture from various periods. The Warren Shaft explorations of the 19th century mapped some subterranean features. However, the specific gate described by Ezekiel remains a matter of scholarly reconstruction rather than archaeological verification.
Verse Appearances (1)
1Chr
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]