And at the fountain gate, which was opposite them, they went up by the stairs of the city of David, at the ascent of the wall, above the house of David, even unto the water gate eastward.
All Commentaries on Nehemiah 12:37 Go To Nehemiah 12
Bede
AD 735
It would take a long time to discuss all the gates and towers individually. Let it suffice to have said that those who completed the gates, towers and city wall amid great toil, hardship, famine, cold and vigils by day and night while the tireless enemy fights against and assails them, afterwards, once the enemy has been beaten back and thrown into disarray, go walking together through the gates, towers and buildings of this city and rejoice with songs, hymns, harps, cymbals, lyres, and trumpets and thanksgivings together with those very teachers who were the authors of the project and the teachers of God’s law. No one can doubt that in the same sequence, this takes place in the spiritual building too when, as the hour of final retribution approaches as though it were the longdesired dedication of God’s city, the faithful obtain eternal rewards for their works when, much like Nehemiah and Ezra and the other priests and Levites as they each bring forth their workers, all the teachers of faithful peoples conduct their listeners whom they have acquired for the Lord into the fortifications of the heavenly homeland. Then, as well as the other fortifications of the holy city, Nehemiah also walks with his choir of praisers over the Tower of the Ovens in whose structure they once used to sweat, when teachers of the truth rejoice over the sublime rewards of those whom they have taught. For if the loaves of the furnace that are baked in secret signify the inward devotion of the mind of the faithful that is strengthened by the fire of love, which is why such loaves were also commanded by the Law to be offered as a sacrifice to the Lord, what could be more aptly figured by the ovens in which these loaves are baked than their very hearts that are accustomed always to burn with the flame of inner love and to beget deeds or words of the virtues? On Ezra and Nehemiah
