Around the Tent

William Johnstone (1 & 2 Chronicles, 1.126-7) notes that the gatekeepers listed in 1 Chronicles 9 are “first and foremost . . . security guards,” responsible for “locking up at night and opening first thing in the morning (v. 27). Their settlements surrounded the sacred precincts for security.”

The problem was not so much enemies from outside Israel as “those within the sacred community who were suffering from some ritual impurity that ought to have debarred them from entry.” Gatekeepers protected the “holiness of the temple” by limiting “access to the different areas of the Temple to those with the requisite degree of sanctification and purity.” That included ceremonial purity but included moral purity as well: Johnstone cites Psalms 15 and 24 as evidence that the wicked had no place in Yahweh’s house.

Once admitted, worshipers had to follow regulations, and the gatekeepers were also to “ensure the correctness of their observance of the sacred rites once they had gained entry.” The had “charge of the lesakot v. 26), the rooms opening onto the Temple courts where the laity ate their communion sacrifices (cf., e.g., 1 Sam. 9.22; Jer. 35.2, 4). By the post-exilic period, these rooms are associated with officials of high rank in the cult and are mentioned (as here) in association with storerooms.” Those storehouse were stocked with grain, oil, wine, as well as the materials for incense and anointing oil, all of which were needed for “a whole series of sacrifices, both national and individual, stated and ad hoc.”

Thus the Levitical gatekeepers provided a protective cordon that kept impurities out, which simultaneously protected the activities within. As Johnston describes it, the gatekeepers were there to prevent the worship of Israel from being disrupted and spoiled. They guarded the house to ensure that Israel could eat and drink and rejoice before Yahweh unmolested. They stood as a firmament between the heavenly precincts of the temple and the earth beneath, between the garden and the howling waste. Gatekeepers protect interiors from external threats, but they exist to ensure that what happens inside has a chance to flourish.