We walked from the old city of Jerusalem to The City of David. This is not Bethlehem which is also known as the city of David . . . this is the actual city David lived in as King of Jerusalem. His palace was here though nobody knows where exactly. The land in the City of David is owned by Palestine & they will not allow anyone to excavate the land which is unfortunate because there is a literal ancient kingdom buried beneath it. On the other hand, many homes for hundreds of people lie on this same land & I wouldn't want to take away their homes either. It's a sticky situation, the cause of many arguments, & there is no right answer for which scenario is more important unfortunately.
A little bit of the area had been excavated & the walls & steps that have been discovered date back to King David's time. These are some of the oldest archaeological finds in all of Jerusalem.
I've been very excited about this portion of our trip. Maybe it's the archaeologist in me, or perhaps it's just the knowledge I've obtained this year by teaching an early morning religious class to teenagers about the history of Israel. Whatever it was, I was DYING to see the Siloam Tunnel (aka Hezekiah's Tunnel.). We entered the underground tunnel system & slowly made our way down into the earth.
We found ancient shaft in the tunnels that King David came up to defeat the Canaanites in Jerusalem.
1 Kings 1:33-34
"The kind said unto them, take with you the servants of your lord, & cause Solomon my son to ride upon mine own mule, & bring him down to Gihon: And let Zadok the priest & Nathan the prophet anoint him there king over Israel; & blow ye with the trumpet & say, God save King Solomon."
THIS POOL (lit by blue light) was carved into the rock 3,800 years ago. It was Jerusalem's wartime water source to be used in times of siege. King Solomon was crowned King over Israel in this very spot in 1 Kings 1:32-40.
Inside the tunnels, they built a room to help you imagine what it would have been like to walk through the tunnels 3,800 years ago. My kids were fascinated by the sound of dripping water & the never ending hallway of tunnel.
Just beyond that room was the entrance to Hezekiah's Tunnel.
2 Kings 20:20
"And the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, & all his might, & how he made a pool, & a conduit, & brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?"
2 Chronicles 32:30
"This same Hezekiah also stopped the upper watercourse of Gihon, & brought it straight down to the west side of the city of David. And Hezekiah prospered in all his works."
King Hezekiah prepared Jerusalem for an impending siege by the Assyrians, by blocking the source of the waters of the upper Gihon, & leading them straight down on the West to the City of David. By diverting the waters, he prevented the enemy forces under Sennacherib from having access to water. This water channel was hand carved from BOTH ends through rock underground & meeting in the middle at the beginning of the 8th Century B.C. The tunnel is 583 yards long at a .06% gradient which allows the water to naturally flow from it's starting point in the Gihon to the Siloam. It is a engineering wonder for that time period.
You can walk the 583 yards through the tunnel. Depending on the day & the flow of the water, it's about thigh deep (unless you're short like me) & it is VERY dark & VERY narrow. You need a flashlight to go through it & you can't be claustrophobic at all. The walls are short & narrow & the water runs quite swiftly as you walk. Our large group would have never made it through the tunnel (especially with 21 kids that would have had water up to their necks & faces.). We did touch the water & go into the first part of it, but then chose to walk through the other part of the tunnel on dry ground.
The dry section of the tunnel was still pretty narrow & exciting too. I love caves & tunnels so this was a blast for me.
We came out on the other side of the City of David & made our way to the Siloam Pool (where Hezekiah's tunnel ends.)
Siloam Pool is pretty much dried up today. There is a small section of it that still holds water & water still flows from Hezekiah's Tunnel to the pool, but it's not the same size it was in Hezekiah's time.
There is a little area that historians have "dressed up" to look like David's day with a marketplace, animals, & food. The kids enjoyed this part of the Siloam Pool area.
Jesus healed a blind man at the pool of Siloam as accounted in the book of John. It is absolutely amazing to know that I was seeing so many places from the bible stories I've read. It was such an incredible feeling.
John 9:6-7
"When he had thus spoken, he spat on the ground, & made clay of the spittle, & he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, & said unto him, Go, wash in the pool of Siloam. He went his way therefore, & washed, & came seeing."
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| The end of Hezekiah's Tunnel |
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