Bible Location
3 cross references · Modern-day map available
Siloam was the pool and water system in Jerusalem closely associated with Jesus' healing of the man born blind. It is important because it ties one of John's major sign narratives to the city's physical waterworks. First appears in Luke 13:4.1
Coordinates
31.78, 35.23
First appears
Luke 13:4
AI summary: Siloam matters because it turns a familiar city water source into the setting of revelation. In John, washing there becomes part of the process by which blindness gives way not only to sight but to faith and testimony. The cross references present Siloam as a Jerusalem pool of healing, witness, and embodied sign.1
Latitude
31.78
Longitude
35.23
Bible references
3
Sent or sending. Here a notable miracle was wrought by our Lord in giving sight to the blind (John 9:7-11). It has been identified with the Birket Silwan in the lower Tyropoeon valley, to the south-east of the hill of Zion.
The water which flows into this pool intermittingly by a subterranean channel springs from the “Fountain of the Virgin” (q.v.). The length of this channel, which has several windings, is 1,750 feet, though the direct distance is only 1,100 feet. The pool is 53 feet in length from north to south, 18 feet wide, and 19 deep. The water passes from it by a channel cut in the rock into the gardens below. (See EN-ROGEL.)
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. 3
Source note: this 1893 dictionary language reflects its period and may be culturally insensitive or outdated. It is presented as historical source material, not as ai-BIBLE’s language, interpretation, or endorsement.
AI-assisted summary prepared for ai-BIBLE and stored as page content, based on dictionary material, place metadata, and linked Bible cross references.
Alistair de Blacquiere-Clarkson, “ai-BIBLE Bible Names JSON Factsheet Aggregating Material from Smith’s Bible Dictionary & Hitcocks’s New and Complete Analysis of the Bible.” ai-BIBLE electronic edition, version 1.0.
M.G.Easton, Illustrated Bible Dictionary, ai-BIBLE electronic edition, version 1.0.
Robert Rouse, “Theographic Bible Information,” Theographic-Bible-Metadata, 2020, https://github.com/robertrouse/theographic-bible-metadata.