Pool of Siloam
|
|
Pool-of-Hezekiah.jpg
Pool of Siloam (Hebrew "sent" or "sending") is a landmark mentioned several times in the Bible. This Pool has been identified with the Birket Silwan in East Jerusalem (reported in Easton's Bible Dictionary as "in the lower Tyropoeon Valley, to the south-east of Mount Zion."
The water which flows into this pool intermittingly by a subterranean channel derives from a springs renamed by Christians the "Fountain of the Virgin". The length of this channel, which has several windings, is 1,750 feet, though the direct distance is only 1,100 feet. The pool is 53 feet in length from north to south, 18 feet wide, and 19 deep. The water passes from it by a channel cut in the rock into the gardens below.
According to Gospel of John 9:6-11, this is the location where Jesus of Nazareth performed a miracle in giving sight to the blind:
- 6 When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, 7 And said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, (which is by interpretation, Sent.) He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing. (King James translation)
- Main article Siloam inscription.
In the conduit leading to the pool the Siloam inscription was discovered in 1880, among the oldest extant Hebrew records. it is an accounting of the manner in which the water turnnel was constructed during the reign of Hezekiah.
See also
External link
- Image and text of the Siloam inscription (http://www.kchanson.com/ANCDOCS/westsem/siloam.html)