Kore

Kore (meaning partridge) was the name of two individuals in the post-exilic period. The first was a Levite of the family of Asaph, the son of Imnah, who was a gatekeeper of the eastern gate and was appointed by King Hezekiah during his religious reformation to oversee the freewill offerings brought to God—ensuring their proper distribution to the priests and Levites in their cities (2 Chronicles 31:14).

A second Kore was a Levite of the Korahite family, the son of Asaph, listed in 1 Chronicles 9:19 (and 26:1 in connection with his son Shallum, who headed the Korahite gatekeepers). The Korahite gatekeepers traced their lineage to Phinehas son of Eleazar, who had charge of the threshold of the tent of meeting. The gatekeeper function these Kore-related families exercised was both a practical role—controlling access to sacred precincts—and a symbol of the careful maintenance of boundaries between the holy and common that was central to Israelite worship theology.