Week 52 Revelation 21
Right near the end of his vision John saw: a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared…And (he) saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem , coming down from God out of heaven.
John gave quite a few details about the holy city but I stopped where he said: its walls were broad and high, with twelve gates guarded by twelve angels. And the names of the twelve tribes of Israel were written on the gates. There were three gates on each side – east, north, south, and west.
I stopped there because I was thinking back to the similarities I remember from Ezekiel’s Temple-vision. It had twelve gates too. Three on each of the cardinal points of the compass. Each gate named for a tribe:
North: Reuben Judah Levi
East: Joseph Benjamin Dan
South: Simeon Issachar Zebulun
West: Gad Asher Naphtali
In Revelation John didn’t name who was on which side of the city. So I wonder if I could get away with plugging-in Ezekiel’s names of the twelve gates of the temple. But I don’t think I can. It’s apples & oranges. The New Jerusalem vs. Ezekiel’s Temple. I just don’t know. It’s better not to guess.
Note: quotes from Revelation 21:1-2 21:12-13 14 Ezekiel 48:30-34 (NLT). I also thought back to Numbers 2 and the way the tribes were positioned by threes around the tabernacle to north-south-east-and-west. I compared those names. The groupings weren’t the same at all.