38 NADAV NA’AMAN The number and location of gates in the pre-exilic city was about the same. The Benjamin Gate and Court Gate, located in the north- eastern and northwestern sides of the Temple Mount, antedated the Second Temple Sheep Gate and Fish Gate. The Ephraim Gate was lo- cated south of the Second Temple Jeshanah Gate, probably north of the place where the “Broad Wall” reached the city’s western wall (Neh 12,38-39). According to 2 Kgs 14,13, King Joash of Israel “made a breach of 400 cubits in the wall of Jerusalem, from Ephraim Gate to the Corner Gate”. The breach of about 185 meters (according to the short cubit) passed along the western wall of the Temple Mount up to a point north of its future juncture with the “Broad Wall”. We may safely assume that the Valley Gate was already built in the First Temple period, possibly under a different name, and was the main gate that connected the Southeastern Hill with the new quarter built on the Southwestern Hill. Due to its strategic location between the two parts of the city, I suggest identifying it with the Middle Gate (ša‛ar hattāek) mentioned in Jer 39,3, where the Baby- lonian officers sat for judgment after breaching the northern wall of Jerusalem 38. Before the quarrying of Hezekiah Tunnel, the Water Gate in the east led to the Spring of Gihon, but as far as we know, did not lead out of town. The Potsherd Gate (Jer 19,2) probably antedated the Dung Gate in the southwestern corner of the City of David, and the Gate between the Two Walls (2 Kgs 25,4; Jer 39,4; 52,7) antedated the Fountain Gate on its southeastern corner. In sum, five of the six gates that Nehemiah repaired were built in the same place as those of the First Temple period, but most of the ancient names were either re- placed or used side by side with new ones. The Jeshanah Gate alone did not appear in pre-exilic texts and has replaced the Ephraim Gate located on its south 39. The pre-exilic structure located near the gate and alluded to by the ellipsis of its name remains unknown. 38 K. GALLING identified the Middle Gate with the Ephraim Gate, which he located in the city’s northern wall; see “Archäologischer Jahresbericht”, ZDPV 54 (1931) 88-89; idem, “Jerusalem”, Biblisches Reallexikon (Tübin- gen 1935) 303, and map on pp. 301-302. N. AVIGAD, Discovering Jerusalem (Nashville, TN 1983) 59, identified the Middle Gate with the gate he recon- structed in the northeastern corner of the “Broad Wall”. 39 Needless to say, there were many internal gates in the City of David and the Temple Mount in the First and Second Temple periods, but they are not my concern here.