1. Nehemiah 2:13 (ESV)
  2. Exposition

What is “the Valley Gate”?

Nehemiah 2:13 (ESV)

13 I went out by night by the Valley Gate to the Dragon Spring and to the Dung Gate, and I inspected the walls of Jerusalem that were broken down and its gates that had been destroyed by fire.

We know next to nothing about this gate (see 2 Chronicles 26:9). From the route Nehemiah describes, it must have been on Jerusalem’s west side. That the gate was still there (be it no doubt burnt) suggests that here was a portion of the city’s walls that the Babylonians had not totally destroyed or perhaps that earlier work had succeeded in restoring this piece (Ezra 4:21).