The city gate in ancient Israel and her neighbors the form, function, and symbolism of the civic forum in the southern levant

The civic forum in ancient Israel affected the culture profoundly, and its pervasive influence is clearly visible in the hundreds of references to gates in the Hebrew Bible and the literature of the ANE. We began this study by looking at the physical shape of gates in the southern Levant, clarifying many details about their architectural form. We saw that both gatehouses and gate complexes were purposely designed to create public space, while maintaining a high degree of defensibility. We also surveyed the most common ways in which this space functioned: for public notice and assembly, the gathering of the town elders, the public presentation of the king, legal and judicial proceedings, cultic practices, commercial use, agricultural practices (?), and of course military defense. These diverse functions of the forum led to the gate's conceptual significance and its symbolism in ancient Israel. The term “gate” can refer by metonymy or synechdoche to the town, the city council, the townspeople, the legal system, the place of execution, or Israelite society. Gates are symbolic of kingly assertions of power and independence, and of community well-being. And gates are symbolic of many conceptual boundaries: between the realms of the profane and the sacred, between civilization and nature, between the Israelite community and outsiders, between earth and heaven, between life and death.