Many years ago (1880) a youth, while wading up the conduit by which
the water enters the pool, accidentally discovered an inscription cut in the
rock, on the eastern side, about 19 feet from the pool. This is the oldest
extant Hebrew record of the kind. It has with great care been deciphered by
scholars, and has been found to be an account of the manner in which the
tunnel was constructed. Its whole length is said to be “twelve hundred
cubits;” and the inscription further notes that the workmen, like the
excavators of the Mont Cenis Tunnel, excavated from both ends, meeting
in the middle.
Some have argued that the inscription was cut in the time of Solomon;
others, with more probability, refer it to the reign of Hezekiah. A more
ancient tunnel was discovered in 1889 some 20 feet below the ground. It is
of smaller dimensions, but more direct in its course. It is to this tunnel that
Isaiah (8:6) probably refers.
The Siloam inscription above referred to was surreptitiously cut from the
wall of the tunnel in 1891 and broken into fragments. These were,
however, recovered by the efforts of the British Consul at Jerusalem, and
have been restored to their original place.
- SILOAM, TOWER OF mentioned only Luke 13:4. The place here
spoken of is the village now called Silwan, or Kefr Silwan, on the east of
the valley of Kidron, and to the north-east of the pool. It stands on the
west slope of the Mount of Olives.
As illustrative of the movement of small bands of Canaanites from place to
place, and the intermingling of Canaanites and Israelites even in small
towns in earlier times, M.C. Ganneau records the following curious fact:
“Among the inhabitants of the village (of Siloam) there are a hundred or so
domiciled for the most part in the lower quarter, and forming a group apart
from the rest, called Dhiabrye, i.e., men of Dhiban. It appears that at some
remote period a colony from the capital of king Mesha (Dibon-Moab)
crossed the Jordan and fixed itself at the gates of Jerusalem at Silwan. The
memory of this migration is still preserved; and I am assured by the people
themselves that many of their number are installed in other villages round
Jerusalem” (quoted by Henderson, Palestine).
- SILVER used for a great variety of purposes, as may be judged from the
frequent references to it in Scripture. It first appears in commerce in
Genesis 13:2; 23:15, 16. It was largely employed for making vessels for