Potsherd Gate
Potsherd 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 Potsherd Gate, also known as the Gate of Potsherds or the East Gate, is mentioned in Jeremiah 19:2, where God commanded the prophet to go out to the valley of Ben Hinnom at the entry of the Potsherd Gate and proclaim a message of judgment against Jerusalem. There Jeremiah was to smash a clay jar as a dramatic prophetic sign that God would shatter the city and its people because of their idolatry and child sacrifice in the valley of Topheth (Jeremiah 19:1-13). The gate's name likely derives from the broken pottery fragments discarded in the area, as potters worked nearby and refuse was cast into the adjacent Hinnom Valley. This act of prophetic symbolism at the Potsherd Gate was one of Jeremiah's most vivid object lessons, directly connecting the fragility of clay vessels with the coming destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon. The location at the junction of the city and the accursed valley of Hinnom made it a fitting setting for this oracle of irreversible judgment.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
The Potsherd Gate is generally identified with a gate in the southern wall of ancient Jerusalem that opened toward the Hinnom Valley (Ge-Hinnom). Some scholars associate it with the Dung Gate mentioned in Nehemiah 2:13 and 3:13-14, which also faced the southern refuse area of the city. Archaeological excavations in the City of David and along Jerusalem's southern fortifications have uncovered portions of the Iron Age city walls and gate systems, though a definitive identification of the Potsherd Gate itself has not been established. The Hinnom Valley below has yielded extensive pottery dumps consistent with the gate's name. The area near the confluence of the Hinnom and Kidron valleys has produced significant finds including burial caves and inscriptions from the First Temple period.
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]