Revelation 21:12

Revelation 21:12. Having a wall great and high, having twelve gates. The walls of ancient cities were for protection against enemies, and of such protection there was no need here. But so important in this respect were walls, that they were associated in the ancient mind with every-thing that in a city was brave or bold (comp. Psalms 48). Hence the New Jerusalem has not only a wall, but a wall ‘great and high.' It has also twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels. The word translated ‘gate' is not so much the gate itself as the porch or portal with which it was connected (comp. Matthew 26:71). It includes the gate - tower under which the traveller passes at this day into many an Eastern city. These gates were twelve in number, disposed like the gates of the encampment of Israel around the Tabernacle. The angel at each gate in all probability marks the heavenly protection which is extended by the Almighty to His people, of each of whom it may be said that God ‘gives His angels charge concerning' him.

And names written thereon which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel. These twelve tribes represent the whole people of God, Gentile as well as Jew: and, if so, we have an argument powerfully corroborative of what has been said of the 144,000 sealed ‘out of every tribe of the children of Israel' in chap. 7. The figure itself is from Ezekiel 48:31.