Encyclopedia of The Bible – Fish Gate
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Fish Gate

FISH GATE (שַׁ֤עַר הַדָּגִימ׃֙). A gate in Jerusalem. Manasseh is said to have built the outer wall of Jerusalem from W of Gihon to the Fish Gate (2 Chron 33:14). When Nehemiah rebuilt the walls; the Fish Gate was built by the “sons of Hassenaah” (Neh 3:3); and one of the choirs proceeded past it at the dedication of the walls (12:39). In Zephaniah 1:10 it is mentioned with the Mishneh or “second quarter” of the city. The majority of scholars hold that it stood in the Tyropoeon Valley in the NW wall of the city (so J. Simons, Jerusalem in the Old Testament [Leiden: Brill, 1952], p. 291, n. 3; yet see now M. Avi-Yonah, “The Walls of Nehemiah,” IEJ 4 [1954], 242, who would identify it with the Ephraim gate). It apparently obtained its name from the fish market near by (cf. Neh 13:16).