The Golden/Eastern Gate

 

Eastern "Golden" Gate - Temple Mount

I did some research on this awhile back and found it pretty fascinating so I'm sharing it here. It involves a lot of prophecy as well as well as end-times/return-of-the-Messiah stuff, so it's really an interesting real-world reality that points to the truth of Scripture.

What is it?

The image at the top of this post is picture of the Eastern Gate of Jerusalem leading into the Temple Mount, and which faces the Mount of Olives. It has been called by many names, but some that you might recognize would be "The Golden Gate" and the "The Mercy Gate". Josephus, the 1st century Jewish historian, mentions the Eastern gate in some of his writings and tells us that it was considered the far northeastern extremity of the inner sacred court of the 2nd temple. Obviously the gate that stands there today was not the same one Josephus mentions, since the 2nd temple was destroyed in 70 A.D.

Significance in Scripture - Outside of prophecy

• Jesus entered Jerusalem through this gate on a donkey on the first Palm Sunday, and likely went in and out of this gate many times during his life, walking between the temple and the Mount of Olives
• Some commentators suggest that this is the gate where Peter and John healed the lame man at "The Gate called Beautiful" (Acts 3:1-10)

The Prophecy

The prophecy, and where the Eastern/Golden Gate comes into focus for end-times events, comes from Ezekiel and Zechariah:

"The He brought me back by way of the outer gate of the sanctuary that faces east, but it was shut. The LORD said to me: "This gate will be shut; it will not be opened, and no one will enter by it. For the LORD, the God of Israel, has entered by it; therefore it will remain shut. Only the prince may sit in it to eat a sacrificial meal before the LORD; he will enter by way of the porch of the gate and will go out by the same way."" (Ezekiel 44:1-3 NET)

**Sidenote, it's worth reading the whole of Ezekiel 44 because it goes on to talk about how there will an earthquake that splits the Mount of Olives into two, and that two streams of living water will flow from Jerusalem, one stream flowing eastward toward the Dead Sea (thus bringing it back to life) and one stream flowing westward towards the Mediterranean Sea.

"On that day [Day of the LORD] his feet will stand on the Mount of Olives that lies to the east of Jerusalem, and the Mount of Olives will be split in half from East to West, leaving a great valley. Half of the mountain will move northward and the other half southward." (Zechariah 14

So - to summarize, Zechariah is seeing a vision of the Day of the Lord and it says that the LORD himself, or Jesus, will physically stand on, or return to, the Mount of Olives (opposite the Eastern Gate). Ezekiel is receiving a prophecy about the End that seems to indicate that Jesus will go in and out of the Eastern Gate (the prince, someone who is not a mere man). There is also the obvious reference to that gate being sealed.

Two Very Similar Stories

It has been sealed (bricked up) since 1541, and had at various times before that, been sealed and unsealed. Furthermore, there was a cemetery placed in front of it. The Ottoman Sultan Suleiman, who has been credited with rebuilding the Eastern gate in the 1500s is also responsible for sealing it. The cemetery part is where things get more interesting - if you have done any detailed work in Torah, one of the highest levels of ritual impurity that one can have, and which immediately disqualifies someone from entering the Temple, is corpse impurity. Numbers 19:11 says, "Whoever touches a human corpse will be unclear for seven days...." and then 2 verses later, "if [the one who touches the corpse] fails to purify themselves after touching a human corpse, they defile the LORD's tabernacle. They must be cut off from Israel." The key verse for understanding the cemetery specifically, comes from Numbers 19:16, "...anyone who touches a human bone or a grave, that person will be defiled for seven days."

According to Christian historians, the Muslims created that cemetery in front of the Eastern gate with the logic being: if The Messiah has to pass through a cemetery in order to access the Temple, then doing so would render him ritually impure and thus prevent that from happening.

...The story I just shared with you is the 'Christian' view of it - there is a different story in Islam. You have to understand, the Temple Mount is deeply sacred in both Islam and Judaism. Weirdly, for both religions, this is the focal point, geographically speaking, of their eschatology...and not only that, but it is the focal point of where the final judgement takes place. In Islamic faith, the Last Judgement will take place in the Kidron Valley and then the righteous will pass through the Mercy Gate (the Golden/Eastern gate) and enter paradise. In the Biblical worldview, Jesus will return physically to the Mount of Olives, which will split in two and it is in that valley, outside of the Eastern wall of Jerusalem and in front of the Mount of Olives (which is the Kidron Valley), is where he will separate the sheep from the goats. If you really want to get granular here, in Matthew 25 we read, "He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left." (25:33) If the Kidron Valley is the place of judgement, then the Valley of Hinnom (Gei Ben-Hinnom), which is thought to be the place where the lake of fire will be, will be to Jesus' left, as he's facing the temple. The Valley of Hinnom is on the south and west sides of the temple mount. Anyway...I digress.

The purpose of that cemetery is most likely two-fold. Perhaps there was an evil intent behind it as mentioned earlier. What seems more likely though, and this is especially interesting given that there is a large cemetery on the slopes of the Mount of Olives, is that these cemeteries are there because the people in those tombs wanted to at 'ground zero' when the end times came. Both faiths teach a bodily resurrection of all human beings, at the judgement.

Either way - the fact that there are two cemeteries, one in front of the Eastern Gate and one on the slopes of the Mount of Olives, tells us that there are many who believe that these prophecies will be fulfilled and they want to be right there in the action when it happens.

Scripture Brought to Life

When I did the research on this - it helped Scripture come to life in some ways. It can feel so dry when we read it sometimes, usually because we lack the contextual details behind brief references here or there or we have trouble seeing the scenes in our mind's eye...but when you see a technicolor example, in real life, that you can see when your own eyes, that ties into the claims of Scripture, suddenly it feels very real.

We will see Jesus again one day - and Scripture gives us a lot to work with in terms of the where. We can see those places right now and when we see the surroundings, the reality of it all speaks to the fact that others believe it's true too.