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"THAT MAN THEY CALL JESUS MADE MUD AND SMEARED IT ON MY EYES,
TELLING ME TO GO TO SILOAM AND WASH. SO I WENT AND WASHED,
AND THEN I COULD SEE"
JOHN 9:11
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Wouldn’t
you have liked to follow the blind man to the Pool
of Siloam? At the time of Jesus, the Pool of
Siloam would have been some 700-years-old, being
built originally by King Hezekiah, when he diverted
the waters from the Gihon Spring over to the western
suburbs of the capital.
In 701 B.C., after 46 Judean cities had been
conquered by the Assyrian army from northern Iraq,
Jerusalem faced a similar fate. But Hezekiah’s
engineers had prepared the city so that the
Jerusalemites had plenty of water and were able to
withstand the siege. At the same time, they
blocked up the Gihon spring outside the city walls,
to deprive the enemy of their abundant water supply.
After 185,000 Assyrian soldiers mysteriously
perished in one night, Sennacherib, the Assyrian
king, cried “uncle” and went home. |
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The tunnel built by Hezekiah’s
engineers was eventually forgotten. It was
thought that the Pool of Siloam (Shiloah in
Hebrew) was fed directly by an underground spring.
In Jesus’ day, the Feast of Tabernacles, which was
like a Judean Thanksgiving, with pilgrims bringing
offerings of luscious freshly harvested dates,
pomegranates, grapes, figs, and olives, began at the
Pool of Siloam with a joyful musical procession
called Simhat Beit HaShoevah or The Rejoicing
of the Water-Drawing.
During the ceremony, a designated priest, surrounded
by jubilant worshippers, would draw water from the
Pool of Siloam and carry it in a golden pitcher up
the hill to the Temple altar. A blast of
trumpets would announce his arrival. The high
priest would then pour the Siloam water into one
silver basin while wine was poured into another. To
the accompaniment of flutes, the priests would sing
“Hallelujah.” (the Hallel) The
celebration was based upon Isaiah 12: 3, “With joy
ye shall draw water out of the wells of salvation.”
Remember, it is during the Feast of Tabernacles that
Jesus, in the Temple courtyard, spoke of the promise
of living water. It seems likely that this is
in contrast to the ceremony of the water-drawing and
Jesus may have pointed to the golden pitcher as he
cried out, “If any man is thirsty, let him come to
Me and drink." (John 7: 37)
After Jesus was nearly stoned in the temple
precincts, he encountered the man who was blind from
birth. Jesus spat on the ground, made a mud
paste with his saliva, patted it on the man’s eyes
and told him to go to the Pool of Siloam. When
the man washed his eyes, he was miraculously able to
see. One of the first things in his line of
vision would have been a magnificent limestone
staircase leading up from the Pool of Siloam.
And that staircase, dated to Jesus’ day, has just
been revealed! |
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Photo:
Barbara Kreiger |
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Recently revealed steps leading
down to the Pool of Siloam |
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| Until
now, pilgrims wanting to “experience” the Pool of
Siloam have either waded through Hezekiah’s tunnel
or walked through the Kidron Valley. At the
end of the tunnel, there is a narrow pool, less than
two feet wide, with a couple of toppled pillars from
a fifth century church built by the Empress Eudocia.
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mid-19th century
drawing |
Photo: Gila
Yudkin |
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Pool of Siloam called the Virgin's
Fount |
Remains of the 5th century church |
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A couple of
winters ago, when the Turkish sewer system
was being overhauled some yards southeast of
the “traditional” Pool of Siloam,
archeologist Eli Shukron, who has been
working at the City of David for the past
decade, identified two steps in the rubble.
He immediately commanded the sanitation
workers to halt, so he and his colleague
Ronny Reich could investigate. This
led to a spectacular find -- the revelation
of the original steps of the Pool of Siloam.
This 2005 discovery is startling, for the
City of David, Jerusalem’s oldest
neighbor-hood, is, by far, the most
excavated area in the entire country.
No less than 13 major investigations have
been carried out since Connecticut Yankee
Edward Robinson first explored Hezekiah’s
Tunnel in 1838. Excavators digging
during Ottoman times, the British Mandate,
Jordanian rule and Israeli sovereignty, have
come from
the United States, England, Ireland,
Germany, France, Jordan and Israel. |
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| One early
twentieth-century delegation, nicknamed the
Parker Mission, bought supplies and
archeological equipment by selling shares of
the profits of potential finds such as
David’s sword, Solomon’s crown and the
original tablets of the Ten Commandments.
Had they found the steps to the Pool of
Siloam in the City of David, I’ll bet that
they would have begun exporting the
“original formula” mud paste guaranteed to
heal all blindness. (The mission ended
when Parker and his cronies narrowly escaped
to Jaffa after they were discovered digging
under the carpets at the Dome of the Rock!)
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Photo:
Gila Yudkin |
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Siloam Inscription
describes the meeting of the 2 teams of
tunnelers |
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| Despite all
the archeological inquiry, another very
important discovery -- the 8th century B.C.
Siloam inscription -- was also found by
accident. In 1880, a 16-year-old boy
playing hooky from school was swimming through the tunnel and
felt the marks of chiseling on the stone wall. The
inscription, which describes the tunneling,
is locked today inside an upper room in
Istanbul's Archeological Museum. I
found that a generous offering of
baksheesh helped to open the locked
room. (Baksheesh [$$$] is the
oil that kept everything running smoothly in
the Ottoman Empire!) |
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Photo:
Miriam Feinberg Vamosh |
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8th century B.C. Siloam
Inscription found on the wall of Hezekiah's
Tunnel |
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| The Pool of
Siloam is where I always suspected it was,
covered by a lush orchard of pomegranate and
fig trees. I’m certain that delicate
negotiations are being carried on at this
very moment in order to gain permission to
follow the steps down to excavate the pool
itself. Stay tuned! In the meantime,
we can actually stand on the steps – three
sets of five stairs each, separated by
landings – from the end of the Second Temple
period. The staircase, about 225 feet
long, has plenty of room for everyone in our
group. |
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| When you
return with your family and friends, we'll
follow the direction of Jesus, “Go to the
Pool of Siloam.” After a prayer for
healing, we can sing Amazing Grace, “I once
was lost but now I’m found, was blind, but
now I see.” |
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Copyright 2006 Gila Yudkin. Permission
needed for any reuse. |
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12 MOST
POPULAR ARTICLES this week |
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Gila Yudkin,
who calls herself a Connecticut-born Yankee
living now in King David's Court, has been
guiding pilgrims in the Holy Land for a
quarter of a century. She's splashed
through Hezekiah's Tunnel zillions of times,
and now relishes showing second- to
tenth-timers the original steps to the Pool
of Siloam. |
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| "Let's
go wash in the Pool of Siloam" is part of a series of
free monthly e-letters sent on request to
tour leaders, pastors, clergy, teachers,
Bible students, colleagues and friends.
If you'd like to receive "Holy Sites: Gila's
Highlights" every month, please
contact
Gila. Last month's highlight was:
"Let's count coneys at Caesarea Philippi."
This month's highlight is: "Let's
follow Isaac to Mount Moriah." Next
month's highlight will be: "Let's
throw stones at Absalom's Monument." |
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Read about
Charles Warren’s escapades in “Underground
in Jerusalem with the Intrepid Mole.”
Free Day Jerusalem Adventures in
Tips for Tours includes a brief description
of
Hezekiah’s Tunnel.
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| Read about
another new accidental archeological
discovery -- at
Armageddon.
After three decades, archeologist Ehud
Netzer finally found
Herod's Tomb at Herodion,
the cone-shaped mount 7 miles south of
Jerusalem. Fragments of Herod's
sarcophagus were found scattered on site. |
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