Then Eliashib the high priest rose up with his brethren the
priests
This was the grandson of Jeshua or Joshua the high priest, his father's name was Joiakim, ( Nehemiah 12:10 ) , being high priest, and rising first, he set a good example both to the priests and to the people, and served no doubt greatly to animate and encourage them:
and they built the sheep gate;
so called, because the sheep were led through it to the temple, and near it was the sheep market, where they were sold, and the sheep pool, where the sacrifices were washed; and this being near the temple, and for the service of it, the priests undertook that; not that they laboured with their hands at it, though it is possible some of them might; but they were at the expense of it, employed labourers, and paid them, and directed them, and had the oversight of them: this gate was to the south of the city; and Rauwolff
they sanctified it;
this being for sacred use, and they sacred persons; and this the first part of the building, they prayed for a blessing on it, and in it on the whole work undertaken, of which this was the firstfruits:
and set up the doors of it;
and so finished it:
even unto the tower of Meah they sanctified it, unto the tower of
Hananeel;
so far they built, and what they built they sanctified. The tower of Meah, or a "hundred", as the word signifies, might be so called, either because it was one hundred cubits from the sheep gate on one side, and as many from the tower of Hananeel on the other side, standing between both; or because it was one hundred cubits high: these two towers, perhaps, were firm and strong, and needed no repair, since no mention is made of any; though they seem to me to be one and the same tower; see ( Jeremiah 31:38 ) ( Zechariah 14:10 ) .
F21 Travels, par. 3. c. 3. p. 226, 228.
F23 Vid. Quistorp. in loc.