What Does Revelation 21:13 Mean?
From the rising, three gates, and from the north, three gates, and from the south, three gates, and from the setting, three gates.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
On the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates.THE KEY
The city has no favored face: its entrances are placed evenly around the whole compass.
THE MEANING
The city has three gates on each side, facing east, north, south, and west. Its perimeter offers an entrance from every direction, so no quarter is left without a way in.
THE ROOT
πύλαι
pylai
GROWS FROM
πύλη
pylē
Gate, entrance.
“gates” in this verse is pylai. The Greek word names an actual passage through a boundary. Its related form for a gatehouse keeps the threshold and the structure around it in one word family: the city’s boundary is built with entrances throughout.
ALSO GROWS
pylē: Gate, entrance.
πύλη
The singular form names each repeated opening in the city wall.
pylōn: Gateway or gatehouse.
πυλών
This related word includes the structure of an entrance, showing the gate as part of the city’s built threshold.
ἀνατολῆς
anatolēs
GROWS FROM
ἀνατέλλω
anatellō
To rise or come up.
The Greek word translated “east” also names the rising of the sun. The verse names one side by the sunrise and then gives that side the same three gates as every other direction.
ALSO GROWS
anatolē: Rising; sunrise; east.
ἀνατολή
This noun names the direction from which the sun rises, the east side listed here.
anatellō: To rise, spring up.
ἀνατέλλω
This verb makes the image within “east” visible: the direction is named by what rises there.
THE PATTERN
The city’s boundary has entrances around its full perimeter, and its gates remain open to approach.
Therefore your gates shall be open continually. They shall not be shut, day nor night, so that they may bring to you the strength of the nations, and their kings may be led in.And these are the exits of the city on the north side, four thousand five hundred measures. And the gates of the city shall be after the names of the tribes of Israel. Three gates northward, one gate of Reuben, one gate of Judah, one gate of Levi. And on the east side four thousand five hundred, and three gates, and one gate of Joseph, one gate of Benjamin, one gate of Dan. And on the south side four thousand five hundred measures, and three gates, one gate of Simeon, one gate of Issachar, one gate of Zebulun. On the sea side four thousand five hundred, with their three gates, one gate of Gad, one gate of Asher, one gate of Naphtali.And its gates are never shut by day, for there is no night there.THE THREAD
And its gates are never shut by day, for there is no night there.The same Greek word, πύλαι, names the gates on every side here and the gates that are never shut in verse 25. This verse gives their arrangement around the city; the next reveals that they remain open.
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