The Theology of the Dung Gate Text: Nehemiah 3:13
Introduction: The Muster Roll of Reformation
When we come to a chapter like Nehemiah 3, our modern sensibilities can tempt us to skim. It reads like a contractor's worksheet, a list of unfamiliar names assigned to esoteric gates. We see a catalog of who did what, and we are tempted to think it is little more than a historical footnote, a bronze plaque for the Jerusalem Builders' Guild. But to do so is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of Scripture and the very essence of reformation.
This is not a mere list; it is a muster roll. It is the accounting of a covenant community roused from its stupor, taking up trowel and sword to rebuild the ruins. Reformation is not an abstract, ethereal event that descends in a cloud of pious feelings. It is a gritty, brick-and-mortar affair. It is built by ordinary people doing ordinary, and sometimes dirty, work for the glory of an extraordinary God. We live in an age that loves the idea of revival but despises the sweat of rebuilding. We want the victory parade without the forced march. We want the crown without the cross, the triumph without the trowel.
Nehemiah 3 confronts this theological sentimentalism head-on. It shows us that God's kingdom advances through the faithful, plodding labor of His people, each one taking responsibility for the section of the wall directly in front of them. The priests build, the goldsmiths build, the perfumers build, the rulers build, and their daughters build. And here in our text, we see a man named Hanun and his neighbors from a small town called Zanoah, who were assigned a particularly unglamorous, yet absolutely essential, portion of the work.
Their assignment teaches us three foundational truths about our own work in the kingdom of God. First, that God's work is accomplished by humble people in low places. Second, that this work must be robust and secure, built for genuine defense and not for show. And third, that any community that wants to be holy must be willing to take out the trash.
The Text
Hanun and the inhabitants of Zanoah repaired the Valley Gate. They built it and made its doors stand with its bolts and its bars, and one thousand cubits of the wall to the Dung Gate.
(Nehemiah 3:13 LSB)
The Valley Gate Assignment
We begin with the crew and their first task:
"Hanun and the inhabitants of Zanoah repaired the Valley Gate." (Nehemiah 3:13a)
Notice who is doing the work. It is not a team of elite special forces from Jerusalem. It is Hanun, a man we know nothing else about, and the inhabitants of Zanoah, a small town some miles away. These are the rank and file. These are the ordinary saints, the kind of people who fill our churches, pay their taxes, and raise their children. And God writes their names and the name of their town in His holy book for all time.
This is a profound encouragement. You do not need to be a theological celebrity or have a podcast with thousands of downloads to do significant work for the kingdom. You simply need to be faithful with the assignment God has given you. Hanun and his neighbors were not tasked with the glorious Temple Gate or the Sheep Gate where the sacrifices entered. They were given the Valley Gate.
The name itself is instructive. Valleys are low places. They are places of humility, often of trial and shadow, as the Psalmist tells us. The Christian life is not lived entirely on the mountaintops of spiritual ecstasy. Much of it is lived in the valley of diapers, spreadsheets, difficult conversations, and monotonous labor. The Valley Gate is where you go out to do your business in the fields. It is the gate of the common man, the gate of everyday life. And it needed repair. God is intensely interested in the holiness of our ordinary lives. He is glorified when we reinforce the gates of our homes, our workplaces, and our neighborhoods with faithfulness and integrity. To repair the Valley Gate is to take responsibility for the humble, unseen areas of our lives and secure them for the glory of God.
Bolts and Bars Theology
The text then describes the quality of their work.
"They built it and made its doors stand with its bolts and its bars..." (Nehemiah 3:13b)
This was not a cosmetic touch-up. They did not slap a coat of paint on a rotten frame. They built it. They set its doors. They installed its bolts and its bars. This was a gate meant to function. It was meant to secure the city, to keep out those who would harm it and to protect those within. It was built for war.
Here we find a direct rebuke to the flabby, sentimental brand of Christianity so prevalent today. Many modern churches have gates, to be sure, but they are ornamental. They have no bolts, no bars. They stand for nothing and therefore stand against nothing. Their doctrinal statements are so vague as to be meaningless, their membership requirements are non-existent, and their practice of church discipline is a forgotten relic. They have open gates, but it is the openness of a ruin.
The men of Zanoah remind us that the church of Jesus Christ is a city under siege, and we are called to build real defenses. The bolts and bars of the church are the clear preaching of the Word, the faithful administration of the sacraments, and the courageous practice of church discipline. These are the instruments God has given us to distinguish between the holy and the profane, the righteous and the wicked. A gate without a lock is not a gate; it is a hole. A church that will not define its terms and defend its boundaries will soon be overrun by every sort of theological jackal and cultural scavenger.
The Long Slog to the Dung Gate
Finally, we see the full scope of their assignment.
"...and one thousand cubits of the wall to the Dung Gate." (Nehemiah 3:13c)
They repaired the Valley Gate, and then they had to build a thousand cubits of wall. A thousand cubits is about a third of a mile. This was a massive undertaking, a long, hard, monotonous slog of hauling stones and spreading mortar under the hot sun, with enemies mocking them the whole time. This is what faithful work looks like. It is not a series of dramatic sprints; it is a marathon of plodding. It is what I have called "ploductivity."
And where did this long section of wall lead? It led to the Dung Gate. Some translations, in a fit of misplaced propriety, call it the Refuse Gate. But the Hebrew is straightforward. It is the gate through which all the filth, the waste, and the garbage of the city was taken out to be burned in the Valley of Hinnom. It was the most foul, smelly, and despised gate in the entire city. And Hanun and his neighbors were tasked with building the long, lonely wall right up to it.
Every healthy organism, whether a body or a city, must have a way of expelling waste. If it does not, it will poison itself from the inside out. The same is true for the church. The church must have a functioning Dung Gate. The Dung Gate is the ministry of repentance, confession, and rebuke. It is the place where sin is dealt with honestly and biblically. It is where we take out the trash of our bitterness, our lust, our gossip, and our pride, and we see it for what it is: filthy refuse to be cast out and burned.
A church that is ashamed of its Dung Gate is a church that will soon be filled with dung. When we refuse to call sin "sin," when we neglect church discipline for fear of being unloving, when we value a superficial peace over biblical holiness, we are sealing up our Dung Gate. The filth has no way out. And before long, the whole city stinks. The work of Hanun and the men of Zanoah was not glamorous. It was humble, it was hard, and it was dirty. But without it, the city of God could not be the holy city of God.
Conclusion: Find Your Wall
The lesson for us is plain. God has called each of us to the work of reformation, right here, right now. He has assigned each of us a section of the wall. For some, it may be a glorious gate in full public view. But for most of us, it will be something more like Hanun's assignment.
It will be the humble work of the Valley Gate, cultivating faithfulness in the unseen corners of our lives. It will be the robust work of installing bolts and bars, contending for the truth once for all delivered to the saints, and refusing to compromise with a hostile world. And it will be the dirty, necessary work of the Dung Gate, taking our own sin and the sin of our communities seriously, and dealing with it biblically, no matter how unpleasant the task.
Look around you. What part of the wall is in front of you? What ruin needs rebuilding? Is it in your own heart? Your family? Your church? Your business? Do not despise the assignment because it seems small or lowly. Do not shrink from it because it is difficult or dirty. Pick up your trowel. Hanun and the inhabitants of Zanoah did their part. Their work was recorded in heaven. May the same be said of us.