Hezikiah's Tunnel
Trip Start
May 21, 2011
1
8
Trip End
May 29, 2011
What I did
Jerusalem, Israel
Sunday, May 29, 2011
After taking the Jebuzite city in the Kidron Valley, David made Jerusalem his capitol city, unifying the two tribes of Israel. Right next to Mount Moriah, where Abraham offered up Isaac to a sacrifice, his son Solomon would later build the first temple on that mountain. Ruins being excavated on top of the hill could be that of David's palace. As you stand on the top, you can see how David would be able to see the rooftops of the houses below him, and how he could see Bathsheba from where he was. It was at the Gihon Spring, the city’s water supply, that David had Solomon anointed as his successor.
During the reign of Hezekiah, the Assyrians were capturing city after city in the land. Refugees were coming to the City of David and were settling outside the city walls. Hezekiah, knowing that the Assyrians were coming, made the decision to divert the water in the Gihon Spring and have it flow directly into the city at the Pool of Siloam.(1 Kings 20) It would protect the city’s water from the invading Assyrians, and also deprived them of needed water. The tunnel was excavated by two teams, one starting at each end of the tunnel and then meeting in the middle. The two teams were directed by sound waves coming from the surface. The tunnel took 11 months to dig and is 1500 feet long.
Knowing that the refugees living outside the city walls would be unprotected, Hezekiah also expanded the walls of the city, expanding the borders to include the refugees. He made the outer wall 25 feet thick of solid stone so that the Assyrians couldn’t break through. The Assyrians came, laid siege and failed in the quest to take the city. After the Babylonian captivity, Nehemiah only built on the top of the area because of landslides.
What is neat about this is that you can actually WALK the length of the tunnel, in the water from the Gihon Spring to the Pool. It is not for the claustrophobic. At times, there was barely room to walk; in other places, we had to walk bent over. At one point, I started singing that song from "Snow White and the 7 Dwarves"-“We dig, dig, dig…..in a mine the whole day through…” I then thought it was more like the Mines of Moria because it was dark and we had to use little flashlights to navigate. The water at first was about high thigh high, and cold, but then was only at the most mid-calf deep. At one point, we entered a section with a high roof, which was actually where the tunnel was dug too high and they had to redo. At the end is the authentic replica of the inscription that tells the tale. It was a very neat experience. We exited the tunnel and a came to the Pool of Siloam. During the time of Christ, Jesus healed a blind man here. Today, you can see only part of the Pool -most of it is under the Greek Orthodox Church and not accessible.
After, the bus took us to the Jaffa Gate and the Old City for lunch at the Aroma Café, which is a coffee place. Shai (the bus driver) says they make Israel’s best iced coffee, and I have to agree. They have Starbuck’s beat by a mile and WaWa by a nose. The res tof the afternoon was spent packing and a trip to McDonald’s for their free WiFi.
Dinner was at the American Colony Hotel. I took this from their website: “The rich history of the American Colony dates back to the late nineteenth century, following a series of tragic events that led Horatio and Anna Spafford, a devoutly Christian family, to leave their hometown of Chicago in 1881 in order to find peace in the holy city of Jerusalem and offer aid to families in distress. Drawing strength through their faith and comfort from the words of the hymn “It is Well with my Soul,” written by Horatio following the loss of his four young daughters in a shipwreck, the Spaffords, together with sixteen other members of their church, journeyed to Jerusalem and settled together in a small house in the Old City. “The original copy of the hymn, “It is Well with My Soul” hangs on the wall. The dinner was okay. I had to ask the waiter what one thing on my plate was. I thought it was a taro root dumplings, because it was gummy and tasted starchy. Turns out it was potato, so I can say with some certainty what a potato tastes like that has been mashed and processed too much. It was awful. After dinner, we left for the airport.
On Saturday night, we were asked what our most meaningful moment was of the trip. I don’t think I can pin point one thing. I was disappointed in the Via Dolorosa, but sitting on a boat on the Sea of Galilee was something special. Standing on the Temple Mount, knowing that without a doubt that Jesus was actually there, and stood there, too, was amazing. I think our guide, Schumlick said it best. He said one day he was listening to a guide talk about the Pool of Siloam and he saw that the pool was covered with debris and the junk of time. He realized that the pool was still there under it. He said that sometimes in our lives, an event or experience that is real happens, and we allow it to be covered over with junk and the debris of life, and that we have to clean away that stuff to get back to what is real and meaningful. It was a powerful message, and one I hope we remember.
