MISHNAH: Where were these prostrations? Four in the North, four in the South, three in the East, and two in the West, corresponding to the thirteen gates.
The Southern gates close to the West⁵⁶The gates of the Temple courtyard were not symmetrical in the wall but more to the West; they are enumerated from West to East.: the Upper Gate, the Fuel Gate, the Firstborns’ Gate, the Water gate. And why was it called Water Gate? For there they bring in the phial of water for the water libation on Tabernacles. Rebbi Eliezer ben Jacob said, the water will drizzle in the future from under the threshold⁵⁷As predicted in Ez. 47:1–5.
Opposite them⁹²Continued enumeration of the 13 gates of the Temple compound. in the North, close to the West, the Jechoniah⁹³He is called Jehoiachin in Kings and Chronicles, Koniahu in Jeremiah, Jechoniah in Esther. gate, the Sacrifice gate, the Women’s gate, the Song’s gate. And why was it called the Jechoniah gate? For through it Jechoniah left in his deportation⁹⁴Middot35b.. In the East the Nikanor gate⁹⁵Cf. Yoma3:8, Notes 317 ff., which had two small entrances⁹⁶Where the people charged with opening the large doors to the public could enter with a key., one to the right and one to the left. And two in the West which had no names.