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This last section of the book of Ezekiel is a fitting climax to all that the prophet-priest had seen and written. He described the New Jerusalem as having twelve gates, each named for one of the twelve tribes of Israel. This list of tribes is different from the usual list. Included now were the tribe of Joseph, not the half-tribes Ephraim and Manasseh, and the tribe of Levi, which traditionally was given no land of its own. The naming of the twelve gates after the twelve tribes implied unity of the tribes and equal participation in the new city. Symbolically, the tribes thus surrounded the new city, and so the city, and especially the new temple in the new city, were to be central to the life of all the tribes.
Most important of all is the concluding sentence of the book: “The name of the city from that time on will be: The Lord [Yahweh] Is There” (Heb. Yahweh-šammah). Yahweh, who had departed from the temple and the city because of the terrible sins of the people (10:18), would again reside in the temple and Jerusalem in the restored kingdom. And he would never leave again.
A rabbinic tradition adds an interesting variation on the interpretation of the new name of the new city (Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2, 547). By only a slight change of the vowel pointing, the Hebrew can be read Yahweh-šemah, “Yahweh Is Its Name!” Either reading, or both, may well have expressed Ezekiel’s ecstasy as he concluded his book. No further visions were necessary.