Ahaz was standing here when the intelligence reached him that Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, king of Israel, were approaching Jerusalem to war against him; and in that critical moment the Lord said unto Isaiah,“Go forth now to Ahaz,thou and Shear-jashub, thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field;”[170]and, thirty years later, here Rabshakeh, with a great army, stood and delivered the haughty message of Sennacherib to the ministers of Hezekiah.[171]
From the bottom of the southern wall of this pool there is now a stone conduit of rude workmanship, which conducts the water to the Pool of Hezekiah within the city. It is formed of large stones carelessly laid together, and for some distance it is subterranean, but rises to the surface on approaching the town.
The Pool of Hezekiah is just within the Yâffa Gate, surrounded with dwellings, and is the oldest fountain in the Holy City. Adjoining it are the Greek Convent, the residence of the Protestant Bishop of Jerusalem, the Monastery of the Copts, and the Mediterranean Hotel. Measuring 250 feet long, 150 wide, and eighteen deep, it is capable of holding water enough to supply half of the city. The bottom is formed of the native rock, leveled and coated with cement, and its sides are walled with solid masonry similarly covered. Though designed to supply the citizens with drinking-water, it is now a Moslem bath, called Berket el-Hammân, and usually contains six feet of water. In laying the foundation for the Coptic Convent, the builder discovered an ancient wall, two feet thick, constructed of large hewn stones, located fifty-seven feet from the north wall of the reservoir, and running parallel to it, proving that the pool is less in dimensions than when first made, and also attesting its great antiquity. This pool is among the unquestionable landmarks of the city, and the allusions to it in the Bible are numerous and explicit. Of Hezekiah it is said,“He made a pool and a conduit, and brought water into the city;”[172] and that“he stopped the upper water-course of Gihon, and brought it straight down to the west side of the city of David.”[173] Threatened by the fierce Sennacherib, whose powerful army was marching against his capital,“Hezekiah took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop the water of the fountains which were without the city, and they did help him. So there was gathered much people together, who stopped all the fountains, and the brook that ran through the midstof the land, saying, Why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water?”[174] To deprive his enemies of water, and, at the same time, provide a supply for his own subjects, he sealed the fountains outside of the city, and, by constructing subterranean channels, conducted the water into large tanks within the walls, among which is the pool that bears his name. So secretly was the work accomplished, that the fountain of the Gihon remains a secret with the dead to this day, awaiting the skill and patience of the explorer to uncover its hidden waters, and trace its buried channels to their fountain-head.
POOL OF HEZEKIAH.
In digging to lay the foundation of the English Church on Mount Zion, the architect came to a vaulted chamber, resting on the living rock, twenty feet below the surface of the ground, constructed of fine masonry, and remaining in perfect repair. Entering it, he descended a flight of stone steps, and at the bottom found an immense conduit, partly hewn out of the solid rock, and partly built of even courses of masonry, lined with cement an inch thick. He traced it east and west for 200 feet, finding, at intervals of several feet, openings in the upper side, through which buckets could be lowered to dip the water up. Had permission been granted, he might have traced it to one of the numerous sealed fountains of the ancient city.
One thing strikes the student of Jewish history as no less marvelous than true, that, in all the sieges to which Jerusalem has been subjected, the citizens never suffered from a destitution of water, while the besieging armies suffered severely, and were frequently compelled to bring it from afar. For the want of it, Antiochus Pius, and after him the Crusaders, were delayed in their attacks upon the city, while, through all the long and horrid siege by Titus, no citizen was known to have died of thirst, though thousands perished of hunger. Lying in a limestone region, Jerusalem contains but few wells and living fountains, and in its immediate vicinity but little if any living water is found. To obviate the difficulty, it was necessary to resort to artificial water-works to supply the demand of the Temple service, and also of the vast population which thronged the ancient town.
Among the public works of Solomon which he himself enumerates are “pools of water,”[175] constructed not so much to gratify royal ambition and adorn an already glorious reign as to meet a real necessity, and confer a genuine benefaction uponhis subjects. Seven miles south of Jerusalem, and two miles south of Bethlehem, are the “Pools of Solomon.” Collecting the water from one of the largest springs in Palestine into reservoirs, he conveyed it to his capital by means of an aqueduct, which still remains, a distance, including the windings, of more than twelve miles. Following his example, his successors either completed the works which he had projected, or originated new ones as occasion demanded. With a climate unchanged, and a soil as hard as ever, the people of the modern city depend upon living fountains and the clouds of heaven for their supply of water. As of old, the most delicious water is brought from a distance, principally from the fountains in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, which is brought into the city in goatskins carried on the back of camels and asses. But attached to each dwelling are one or more cisterns, excavated in the limestone rock, and measuring from fifteen to thirty feet long, from eight to thirty broad, and from twelve to twenty deep. The rain-water is conducted, by means of small pipes from the flat-roofed buildings, during the rainy season, into these reservoirs, where it remains pure and sweet for consumption during the dry months of summer and autumn.
How beautifully this scarcity of water illustrates many passages of the Bible, imparting to them a freshness and a reality inconceivable by one who is a stranger to life in the East. In the nomadic life of the patriarchs, many were the sharp quarrels and fierce fights over a well of water.“Abraham reproved Abimelech” because the servants of the latter had violently driven the herdmen of the former from the well of Beersheba;[176]the King of Edom refused to allow Moses to lead the Israelites through his dominions lest his fountains might be exhausted;[177]the churlish Nabal enumerates water with the articles he withheld from David;[178] anticipating the feuds that might arise from drinking of another’s fountain, Solomon advises,“Drink water out of thy own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well;”[179] and, ever drawing his figures from nature and the customs of society, and recalling the value and deliciousness of water,the Savior compares salvation to a “well of water springing up unto everlasting life,” and the perennial joy of piety to the happiness of one who “shall never thirst.”[180] An Oriental can appreciate such an ineffable delight!