Sheep Gate

Biblical Text

The Sheep Gate was a gate in the wall of Jerusalem. In the Old Testament it is mentioned three times in the Book of Nehemiah.

• Nehemiah 3:1: When the wall was being rebuilt, Eliashib the high priest and his brethren the priests built the Sheep Gate, sanctified it (set it apart as holy), and set up its doors.
• Nehemiah 3:32: The section from the upper room of the corner to the Sheep Gate was repaired by the goldsmiths and the merchants.
• Nehemiah 12:39: At the dedication of the wall, the procession of the thanksgiving choirs passed by the Sheep Gate and came to a halt at the Prison Gate.

In the New Testament it appears in John 5:2. This verse places the Pool of Bethesda near the Sheep Gate, and the passage goes on to recount how Jesus healed a man there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.

Background

The Hebrew name is sha'ar ha-tson, meaning "gate of the flock." The word tson refers to a flock of small livestock such as sheep and goats. The text does not explain why the gate bore this name. A widely known explanation, however, holds that sheep intended for sacrifice at the Temple in Jerusalem were brought in through this gate.

Nehemiah 3 lists the sections of the rebuilt wall in sequence, beginning at the Sheep Gate and proceeding north toward the Tower of Meah (Hammeah) and the Tower of Hananeel. In 3:32 the account returns to the Sheep Gate and concludes there. On the basis of this description, the Sheep Gate is thought to have stood north of the Temple, near the northeastern section of the wall. Some associate it with the area near the Lions' Gate (St. Stephen's Gate) in the northeastern part of Jerusalem's present-day Old City. Because the current walls were built in a much later period, however, it cannot be stated with certainty that this is the same site as the gate of Nehemiah's time.

The Greek text of John 5:2 contains only the adjective "sheep" and lacks the word "gate." For this reason, although the rendering "Sheep Gate," found in the New Korean Revised Version and elsewhere, is common, some scholars read the adjective together with the word that follows it as "sheep pool."

Significance in the Whole of Scripture

In the Book of Nehemiah, the Sheep Gate is the point at which the rebuilding of the wall after the return from exile begins and ends. Particularly notable is that the priests were the first to build and sanctify this gate. In the Gospel of John, the Sheep Gate establishes the setting near the Temple, and the healing that took place there leads to a controversy over the Sabbath.

Interpretation and Points of Discussion

In Korean church preaching, typological interpretation (a way of reading Old Testament objects or events as shadows that foreshadow Christ) is often used to connect the Sheep Gate with Jesus Christ. Representative examples include the following:

• Linking the gate through which sacrificial sheep passed with Jesus, the Lamb of God
• Reading the rebuilding of the wall, which begins and ends at the Sheep Gate, as a picture of the beginning and completion of salvation
• Connecting it with John 10:7, 9, where Jesus says, "I am the door of the sheep"

However, the word for "door" in John 10 is a different term, referring to the entrance of a sheepfold, and the biblical text itself nowhere directly connects this saying with the Sheep Gate of the city wall. Such interpretations should therefore be understood as homiletical applications rather than direct statements of the text. Likewise, the explanation that the gate was named for the sheep brought in through it rests on tradition.