THE SOURCE OF JERUSALEM’S WATER
Pools of water in and around the city. Throughout most of its history, the Holy City has depended largely upon private cisterns which its inhabitants have maintained to catch rain water. The city itself has had through the years no living fountain or spring within its walls. The spring of Gihon now called “The Virgin’s Fountain,” is located in the Valley of Kidron just outside the old city of the Jebusites or the City of David. King Hezekiah constructed a conduit or tunnel from this spring through the rock underneath the city to a place in the Tyropean Valley, where a reservoir was constructed to receive the water (2Ki 20:20). This reservoir has gone by the name of The Pool of Siloam. This water project was undertaken mainly to give the city a water supply in time of siege. The pool has been an important source of water for Jerusalem through the centuries. Here the Arab women of the old city often come to wash their clothes, or their vegetables, or their children. And farther in the pool or mouth of the tunnel, they get their pitchers filled with the family supply of water. And at this pool also an occasional shepherd will come to wash his sheep” Other pools located in and around the city that have supplied water include the Pool of Hezekiah, located inside the walls and fed with water through an underground conduit from the Pool of Mamilla. This latter pool lies 2000 feet to the west of Jaffa Gate outside the walls, and is in the Valley of Hinnom and receives drainage water coming down that valley. The Pool of the Sultan lies just outside the Southwestern comer of the wall in this same valley. The Pool of Bethesda is to be found just inside the Eastern wall, between St. Stephen’s Gate and the Northern wall of the temple enclosure. It was here that many sick ones bathed in Christ’s time, believing its waters had healing properties. It was here Christ healed the impotent man (John 5).
Solomon’s Pools and the Temple Area Reservoir. Two miles south of Bethlehem there are three reservoirs of water that have for centuries been called Solomon’s Pools, because it is generally believed that he originally constructed them. Josephus indicated that it was probably Pontius Pilate who rebuilt and enlarged them. Water from these pools was brought to Jerusalem by means of a rock aqueduct and emptied into a great reservoir located under the temple area. Even today water from this source is brought up to the surface at a point between the Dome of the Rock and the Mosque el-Aksa, by an animal skin bucket attached to a rope and running over a wheel. Water carriers using goatskin “bottles” come here to get their water and carry it to many parts of the old city of Jerusalem.
During six months of the year, when there is no rain, water becomes scarce in many parts of Palestine, especially during the latter part of that season when one after another cistern has dried up, and permanent wells and ever-flowing sources must be depended upon for water. In such times the water carrier will go to a well, or reservoir, and then peddle his supply of water to those who need it. He may go down the streets of the city, or he may go into the marketplace. He will call out: “Ho, ye thirsty ones, come ye and drink.” There have been times when a philanthropic person has paid the water carrier for all his supply of water and thus let him offer if free of charge to those who need it. Then he will call forth: “Ho, ye thirsty ones, come and drink today for nothing, for nothing!”Such words remind us of the prophetic invitation of Isaiah: “Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy. . . without money and without price” (Isa 55:1).
Source: Title: Manners and Customs of Bible Lands
Author: Wight, Fred H
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