Shiloah, Siloam
SHILOAH, SILOAM
SHILOAH, SILOAM (Heb. 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. 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. Archaeological researches have shown that this pool actually antedated Hezekiah's tunnel. 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. 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. 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).
According 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). 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 [Jesus] said unto him [the blind man], Go wash in the Pool of Siloam. 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. 3:2). 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. The text refers to Jesus being challenged by a priest about the state of his purity: "He [Jesus] saith unto him, I am clean; for I washed in the Pool of David [probably the Pool of Siloam, i.e., as a reference to the "City of David"], and having descended down one staircase I ascended by another, and I put on white and clean garments, and then I came and looked upon these holy vessels [of the Temple]." Elsewhere, it is said that the Pool of David had "running waters," a reference to the flowing "living" waters that entered the Siloam Pool from the spring of Siloam. The concern for purity in Jerusalem and the use of these two pools is further clarified in the Mishnah in relation to the subject of the zavim, men with bodily emissions (semen). The rabbis advocated that following an emission of semen the man "conveys uncleanness to what he lies upon or sits upon, and [therefore] he must bathe in running water" (Zav. 1:1; cf. Mik. 1:8). Later we hear that a man is a zav if he has had three emissions during the time it takes to go the distance from "Gad-Yavan [which is perhaps an alternative name for the Bethesda Pool] to [the pool of] Siloam (which is time enough for two immersions and two dryings) …" (Zav. 1:5).
Excavations in 2004 at the junction of the Tyropoeon and Kidron Valleys by Reich and Shukrun brought to light the Siloam Pool of Second Temple times; it was apparently trapezoidal in shape (estimated to be 40–60 × 70 meters) with built steps and landings along at least three of its sides; the fourth (west) side is unexcavated. Their findings indicate that the pool was most likely built in its present form during the Second Temple period, with two stages of construction of which the earliest of these is dated to the late first century b.c.e. or first century c.e based on the plaster type and other features. The pool was fed with water which was channeled directly from the Siloam spring without any holding basin needed, but the excavators have suggested the pool might also have been fed with runoff rainwater from other directions.
The spring failed in 70 c.e. during the siege and the water was sold by the amphora (5:410). The name "ravine of Siloam" was applied to the Kidron; it was overhung by the rock of the Dovecotes (5:505). After the siege the ravine served as a refuge for the rebels (6:401). Talmudic sources refer several times to the Shiloah, particularly to the narrowness of its issue, which was not larger than an Italian issar (Tosef. Ar. 2:6). From the Middle Ages onward, the name Shiloah referred to the village on the eastern slope of the Kidron Valley (Ar. Silwān). The village was a suburb of Jerusalem, and the inhabitants worked the fields on the hill of Ophel. In 1884 Jews from Yemen established themselves in part of the village; in 1936 they were forced to abandon their houses. In 1967, after the *Six-Day War, it was incorporated into the Jerusalem municipal area.
bibliography:
G. Dalman, Jerusalem und sein Gelaende (1930), 167ff.; Hecker, in: Sefer Yerushalayim, ed. by M. Avi-Yonah (1956), 191ff.; K. Kenyon, Jerusalem… (1967), 30–31, 77. add. bibliography: C.W. Wilson, "Siloam," in: J. Hastings (ed.), A Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 4 (1902), 515–16; R. Reich and E. Shukrun, "The Siloam Pool in the Wake of Recent Discoveries," in: New Studies on Jerusalem, 10 (2004), 137–39.
[Michael Avi-Yonah/
Shimon Gibson (2nd ed.)]