SILOAM, POOL OF

SENT OR SENDING. HERE A NOTABLE MIRACLE WAS WROUGHT BY OUR LORD IN GIVING
SIGHT TO THE BLIND (John 9:7-11). It has been identified with the Birket Silwan in the lower
Tyropoeon valley, to the south-east of the hill of Zion.
The water which flows into this pool intermittently by a subterranean channel springs
from the “Fountain of the Virgin” (q.v.). 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.
Many years ago (1880) a youth, while wading up the conduit by which the water enters
the pool, accidentally discovered an inscription cut in the rock, on the eastern side, about 19
feet from the pool. This is the oldest extant Hebrew record of the kind. It has with great care
been deciphered by scholars, and has been found to be an account of the manner in which
the tunnel was constructed. Its whole length is said to be “twelve hundred cubits;” and the
inscription further notes that the workmen, like the excavators of the Mont Cenis Tunnel,
excavated from both ends, meeting in the middle.
Some have argued that the inscription was cut in the time of Solomon; others, with more
probability, refer it to the reign of Hezekiah. A more ancient tunnel was discovered in 1889
some 20 feet below the ground. It is of smaller dimensions, but more direct in its course. It is
to this tunnel that Isaiah (Isa. 8:6) probably refers.
The Siloam inscription above referred to was surreptitiously cut from the wall of the
tunnel in 1891 and broken into fragments. These were, however, recovered by the efforts of
the British Consul at Jerusalem, and have been restored to their original place.