The Pool of Shiloah (Siloam)

The Pool of Siloam was a rock-cut pool on the southern slope of the City of David. Remains from the pool that King Hezekiah built in the First Temple period have yet to be found. However, in the summer of 2004 remains of a very large pool (covering three-quarters of an acre) from the Second Temple period was revealed. Nearby, archaeologists uncovered the remains of a stepped street, the path taken by pilgrims ascending from the pool to the Temple Mount.
The Canaanite pool-the biblical Upper Pool
The Canaanite city had a water system by which the Gihon Spring emptied into a large open basin at its source, before being conveyed along the eastern city walls by an aqueduct that opened at several spots towards the valley below, where the water irrigated agricultural fields. This basin is sometimes known as the Upper Pool (2 Kings 18:17, Isaiah 7:3)
Hezekiah's Lower Pool
The (Lower) Pool of Siloam was built during the reign of Hezekiah (715–687/6 BC), to leave besieging armies without access to the spring's waters. The pool was fed by the newly constructed Siloam tunnel. The old Canaanite tunnel had been very vulnerable to attackers, so, under threat from the Assyrian king Sennacherib, Hezekiah sealed up the old outlet of the Gihon Spring and the Upper Pool, and built the new underground Siloam tunnel in place of the older tunnel (2 Chronicles 32:2-4). During this period the Pool of Siloam was therefore sometimes known as the Lower Pool (Isaiah 22:9).Baca selengkapnya