One should also mention an interesting text from Oxyrhynchus in Egypt – a fragment of an uncanonical gospel – which refers to a mikveh-like pool close to the Temple area with separate stairs for going in and out. He went his way therefore, and washed, and came seeing.' In response to the questioning of his querulous neighbors, the blind man repeats his story: 'A man that is called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes, and said unto me, Go to the Pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and received sight.' In addition, the Mishnah tells us of the practice of filling stone cups (clearly the so-called 'measuring cups') with water let down into the Siloam Pool (Par. This pool is already mentioned as a pool adjacent to the city fortifications in Nehemiah (3:15), but the Gospel of John (9:7, 11) clearly indicates its function as a place for ritual immersion in the story of the miracle of the blind man regaining his sight: '…And said unto him, Go wash in the Pool of Siloam. As such, it serves as a landmark in Josephus' descriptions of Jerusalem during the siege of Titus, and marked the boundary between the sections defended by John of Gischala and Simeon Bar-Giora (Wars, 5:140, 252).Īccording to Josephus, the 'Old' or 'First' Wall, which surrounded the Upper and Lower Cities, passed near the spring and the pool (erroneously called the 'pool of Solomon,' which in Greek is similar to 'pool of Siloam' Wars 5:145). The overflow was led into the 'pool of Shiloah.' In later times the name Gihon was forgotten and the name Shiloah included the orifice of the spring itself.

An older open channel, constructed during the Middle Bronze Age, carried water from the Gihon along the eastern slope of the city of David in order to irrigate the 'king's garden' in the 'king's valleys,' i.e., the Kidron. Archaeological researches have shown that this pool actually antedated Hezekiah's tunnel. The 'pool of Shelah' mentioned in Nehemiah 3:15 as 'lying by the king's garden' refers to the pool formed by the overflow of water in Hezekiah's tunnel, which led from the Gihon spring into the city. שֶׁלַח, שִׁלֹּחַ), name applied to the waters of the Gihon spring in Isaiah 8:6 it is probably derived from the root שלח ( shlḥ 'to send forth'), which occurs in Psalms 104:10 in connection with springs.

King pins siloam springs