Pool of Siloam

The Pool of Siloam (Hebrew: בריכת השילוח‎‎, Breikhat Hashiloah) was a rock-cut pool on the southern slope of the City of David, the original site of Jerusalem, located outside the walls of the Old City to the southeast. The pool was fed by the waters of the Gihon Spring, carried there by two aqueducts.

The Pool of Siloam was first built during the reign of Hezekiah (715–687/6 BCE), to provide a water supply inside the City to protect it from a siege. The pool was fed by the newly constructed Siloam tunnel. Prior to this, the Gihon Spring had emptied in a large open basin at its source, before being conveyed to the City by an aqueduct. This basin is sometimes known as the Upper Pool (2 Kings 18:17, Isaiah 7:3). This aqueduct was 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 underground Siloam tunnel in place of the aqueduct (2 Chronicles 32:2-4). During this period the Pool of Siloam was therefore sometimes known as the Lower Pool (Isaiah 22:9). It seems likely that during the Governorship of Nehemiah (from 445 BCE), the pool was also known as the King's Pool (Nehemiah 2:14).

The pool was reconstructed no earlier than the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (103-76 BCE), although it is not clear whether this pool was in the same location as Hezekiah's pool — if so, all traces of the earlier construction have been destroyed. The pool remained in use during the time of Jesus. According to the Gospel of John, Jesus sent "a man blind from birth" in order to complete his healing. As a freshwater reservoir, the pool would have been a major gathering place for ancient Jews making religious pilgrimages to the city. Some scholars, influenced by Jesus commanding the blind man to wash in the pool, suggest that it was probably used as a mikvah (ritual bath),. However, mikvahs are usually much smaller in size, and if the pool were a mikvah, it would be the largest ever found by a substantial margin. Yoel Elitzur has proposed that the pool was used for swimming rather than ritual immersion.

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