![]() ![]() The village women of Siloam obtain the water at the mouth of the cave, but when the supply is scanty they actually go under the lowest step-where there is a kind of chamber-and fill their vessels there. The water rises from a long deep crack in the rock, partly under the lowest of the steps and to a lesser extent in the mouth of a small cave, 11 1/2 ft. Originally the water ran down the open valley. The spring is approached by a steep descent down 30 steps, the water rising deep underground the condition is due to the vast accumulation of rubbish-the result of the many destructions of the city-which now fills the valley bed. From Gihon Hezekiah made his aqueduct ( 2 Chronicles 32:30), now the Siloam tunnel. Manasseh "built an outer wall to the city of David, on the West side of Gihon, in the valley" ( = Nahal, i.e. Its position is clearly defined in the Old Testament. In New Testament times it was, as it is today, credited with healing virtues. This feature may account for the name Gihon and for its sacred characters. The spring is intermittent in character, "bursting up" at intervals: The water in the present day is brackish and impregnated with sewage. It is without doubt the spring known to the Moslems as `Ain Umm edition deraj ("the spring of the steps") and to the Christians as `Ain Sitti Miriam ("the spring of the lady Mary"), or commonly as the "Virgin's Fount." It is the one true spring of Jerusalem, the original source of attraction to the site of the early settlers it is situated in the Kidron valley on the East side of "Ophel," and due South of the temple area. (3) A spring in Jerusalem, evidently sacred, and, for that reason, selected as the scene of Solomon's coronation ( 1 Kings 1:38). (2) The Nile in Jeremiah 2:18 Septuagint (Geon) in Hebrew shichor (see SHIHOR). (gichon, gichon (in 1 K), from root gayach "to burst forth"): indicates this entry was also found in Smith's Bible DictionaryĮaston, Matthew George. indicates this entry was also found in Hitchcock's Bible Names ![]() indicates this entry was also found in Nave's Topical Bible ![]() Easton M.A., D.D., Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Third Edition, It is the opinion of some that the former was the "upper" and the latter the "lower" Pool of Gihon ( 2 Kings 18:17 Isaiah 7:3 36:2 22:9 ). ![]() In the upper part of the Tyropoeoan valley there are two pools still existing, the first, called Birket el-Mamilla, to the west of the Jaffa gate the second, to the south of the first, called Birket es-Sultan. If the "waters of Shiloah that go softly" ( Isaiah 8:6 ) refers to the gentle stream that still flows through the tunnel into the Pool of Siloam, then this excavation must have existed before the time of Hezekiah. It may, however, be possible that this tunnel was executed in the time of Solomon. It briefly narrates the history of the excavation. This inscription was executed in all probability by Hezekiah's workmen. In 1880 an inscription was accidentally discovered on the wall of the tunnel about nineteen feet from where it opens into the Pool of Siloam. The length of this tunnel is about 1,750 feet. This "fountain" or spring is therefore to be regarded as the "upper water course of Gihon." From this "fountain" a tunnel cut through the ridge which forms the south part of the temple hill conveys the water to the Pool of Siloam, which lies on the opposite side of this ridge at the head of the Tyropoeon ("cheesemakers'") valley, or valley of the son of Hinnom, now filled up by rubbish. On the occasion of the approach of the Assyrian army under Sennacherib, Hezekiah, in order to prevent the besiegers from finding water, "stopped the upper water course of Gihon, and brought it straight down to the west side of the city of David" ( 2 Chronicles 32:30 33:14 ). The only natural spring of water in or near Jerusalem is the "Fountain of the Virgin" (q.v.), which rises outside the city walls on the west bank of the Kidron valley.It was the Asiatic and not the African "Cush" which the Gihon compassed ( Genesis 10:7-10 ). But as, according to the sacred narrative, all these rivers of Eden took their origin from the head-waters of the Euphrates and the Trigris, it is probable that the Gihon is the ancient Araxes, which, under the modern name of the Arras, discharges itself into the Caspian Sea. Others regard it as the Oxus, or the Araxes, or the Ganges. One of the four rivers of Eden ( Genesis 2:13 ). ![]()
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