The city of Jerusalem

by C. R. Conder

The prosperity of Jerusalem declined on the death of Solomon, when the kingdom was divided; and five years later the city was sacked by Shishak—the first king of the twenty-second Egyptian dynasty—about 960 B. C. Topographical details are, however, very scanty, though Jehoash of Israel (about 820 B. C.), attacking Amaziah of Judah, is said to have broken down the wall from the Gate of Ephraim (which would be on the north) to the Corner Gate (which was pretty clearly at the north-west corner of the upper city), a distance of 400 cubits. He thus made his assault, as usual, on the weakest point in the fortifications.[125] He again carried off the treasures of the Temple and of the palace. The next king of Judah, Azariah (otherwise Uzziah), strengthened this point by building towers at the Gate of the Corner and at the Gate of the Gai—a term used exclusively of the Hinnom Valley. Both these gates—as will appear later—were near the isthmus which exists inside the present Jaffa Gate; and the towers were the predecessors of Herod’s “royal towers,” which defended the upper city at this neck of high ground. Uzziah is also said to have placed engines—no doubt like those of the Assyrian bas-reliefs—on the walls.[126]

THE OLD POOL

Jotham (about 745 B. C.) is the first Hebrew king who is said to have built a wall on Ophel,[127] though he may merely have made it stronger, as it possibly formed part of Solomon’s wall round Jerusalem, including the Temple and the palace. He was no doubt alarmed at the progress which was then being made by the Assyrians in the conquest of Syria. His successor, Ahaz, was attacked by Pekah of Israel and Rezin of Damascus some ten years later, though they failed to take the city.[128] We have some details of interest as to the water-supply of Jerusalem at this time, before the great works of Hezekiah were carried out[129]; for, in connection with this attack, Isaiah notices the “conduit of the upper pool,” and the “waters of Shiloah that go secretly”; he speaks also rather later of the “collection of the waters of the lower pool,” and of the “place where the waters of the old pool flowed together between the two walls.” Whether we are to understand that the Siloam tunnel was begun as early as the time of Ahaz, or that the older conduit—already described—was then made, there is apparently no connection between the secret water-supply of Shiloah and the other pools noticed by Isaiah. It is certain that the Upper Pool must have been on the west side of the city, since it was there that the Assyrians appeared in 703 B. C., and the site of the Assyrian camp was still pointed out as late as 70 A. D. in this direction.[130] The conduit from this pool to the “lower pool” was no doubt that which also existed in the time of Herod, and which still carries water to the so-called “Pool of the Bath” or “of Hezekiah.” The last named may very well be regarded as the “Old Pool,” being “between the two walls”—that is to say, inside the wall of the lower city and outside that of the upper city. This important reservoir, which was “old” even in the time of Isaiah, thus seems to have been possibly of the Jebusite age. The work of Ahaz consisted in forming an upper reservoir (now called Birket Mâmilla) to supply the old pool by a conduit leading into the city.

The fall of Damascus to Tiglath-pileser, in 732 B. C., caused general consternation in Palestine. Ahaz had already asked aid of the Assyrian against Israel and the Syrians, and he now hasted to offer tribute to the conqueror, whose troops were overrunning Gilead and Galilee, and raided even to Philistia. On the occasion of his visit to Damascus, Ahaz is said to have seen an altar on which he sacrificed, and a copy of which he introduced into the Temple at Jerusalem, displacing Solomon’s bronze altar which he reserved “to inquire by.”[131] There appears to have been a “covered place” in the Temple adorned with gold or silver, as was also the “king’s entry,” and these were now stripped to pay Tiglath-pileser.[132] Ten years later Samaria was captured by Sargon, and it was then perhaps—or in 711 B. C., when Sargon captured Ashdod—that the Assyrian outposts appeared at Nob near Mizpeh, where the most distant glimpse of Jerusalem is caught from the north.[133]

SILOAM

Ahaz had been succeeded by Hezekiah six years before the fall—in 722 B. C.—of Samaria. Preparations for a siege, such as might now be expected, continued to be made at Jerusalem. The older account merely tells us that Hezekiah “made a pool and a conduit, and brought water into the city”; the later independent statement says that besides adding a new outer wall, and repairing “the Millo in the city of David,” he stopped all the fountains and “the brook that flowed through the midst of the ground,” and moreover “dammed the source of the waters of the Upper Gihon, and made it straight below, westwards to [or, for] the city of David.”[134] Whether this was a completion and improvement of the Siloam tunnel begun by Ahaz, or a new tunnel to supersede the older one which may perhaps have already led from the Kidron spring, is not clear; but the characters in which the Siloam inscription—recording the making of the tunnel—are written seem to be nearest to those found on Phœnician weights, in Assyria, which are rather later than the time of Ahaz. This inscription is the oldest of Jerusalem monuments as yet found, and is indeed the oldest purely Hebrew text known. It is of great importance as showing the civilisation of Hezekiah’s age, which, however, is equally attested by the historic cylinder of Sennacherib.

The present Pool of Siloam has been found (by Dr. Guthe in 1881) to be much narrower than that which was probably first cut by Hezekiah in connection with his tunnel, which perhaps required the reservoir to be deeper than the older pool there existing. The pool thus became 30 feet deep and 60 feet square,[135] having a flat walk on each side about 7 feet wide. The tunnel from the Gihon spring is a third of a mile long, and it was begun from both ends. The spring and the pool lie in a south-west direction respectively, but the tunnel winds, and the lower part runs west, either because some soft stratum of rock was followed, or more probably because, working in the dark, the direction was lost till a shaft, 30 feet high, was driven down from the surface, and the correct direction recovered. At the spring a short passage was driven in west, from the back of the cave, and from this the main tunnel (1,707 feet long) began. Here also it is first cut in the wrong direction, westwards, and then bends round south; and here also a great shaft (discovered by Sir Charles Warren), with a rocky stairway, was carried down from the surface of Ophel. This no doubt marks the site of the “Water Gate”; and access to the spring from within the city wall was so attainable, which may be what is intended by “brought water into the city.” Finally, when the two parties of miners heard each other calling, a short cross-cut was made east and west. This point I examined in 1881, and found that each of the tunnels had been abruptly stopped where this cross-cut (about 4 feet long) occurs. It seems also to have been then found that the tunnel was not at a sufficiently low level in its southern part, and that the water would not flow freely, which would account for the Siloam end of the tunnel being much more lofty than the part nearer the spring, the floor level having been cut down.[136]

THE SILOAM TEXT

The famous inscription was carved on the east side of the tunnel near its mouth, in ancient characters of the alphabet of Hezekiah’s age, presenting some minor peculiarities which became distinctive of the script of Israel. It was discovered in 1880 by a Jewish boy, and was reported by Herr Schick, and visited by Dr. Sayce. The first correct copy published was taken from my squeeze, and an excellent copy was almost simultaneously published by Dr. Guthe, through whose courtesy I had been enabled to work with ease in the tunnel. A cast was also fortunately made, for the text was afterwards cut out of the rock by a Greek villain, who was duly punished. Unfortunately, though now preserved in the Museum of Constantinople, this valuable inscription has been broken and damaged. When first found, the letters were full of lime deposit, which Dr. Guthe removed with hydrochloric acid without injuring the stone, and a true copy could not be made till this was done. The text may be thus translated, the ends of the lines being injured, when first found, by the scaling off of the rock.