HEZEKIAH'S TUNNEL (II KINGS 20:20; II CHRONICLES 32:2-4,30)

“Throughout its history, Jerusalem had several water systems, most of which centered on the Gihon Spring, located at the bottom of the eastern slope, which was the only perennial water source for Jerusalem and was the reason for the city's location.” The oldest water system from Gihon Spring was the Siloam Channel... The system lies outside the fortifications, and its vulnerability suggests peacetime usage.” (Borowski)

To prepare for the siege of the city by Sennacherib of Assyria in the late 8^th century BC, King Hezekiah connected the Gihon Spring located in the Kidron Valley to the Pool of Siloam inside the walls of Jerusalem with an S-shaped tunnel dug into the rock about 1,750 feet long. Diggers started at both ends and worked toward the middle. One can still detect the place inside the tunnel where the two teams of diggers met.

In June of 1880, a pupil of archeologist Conrad Schick was playing in the tunnel with some friends. He slipped and fell into the water. Getting up, he noticed writing on the wall three feet above the floor of the tunnel. Despite the attempts of some critics to ascribe this inscription to a much later time period, “the overwhelming consensus continues to date the inscription to Hezekiah's reign.” (B.T. Arnold) The evidence for this dating comes from both paleography (the shapes of the Hebrew letters) and the similarity of events with II Kings 20:20. “This is unlike any other ancient Near Eastern monumental inscription. It is a purely secular document...” (J.M. Hadley)

The inscription reads as follows:

“Now this is the manner of the breakthrough. While still [ ] the axe, each toward his fellow and while three cubits still remained to be tunneled, the voice of a man [was hea]rd calling to his fellow, for there was a fissure in the rock on the right [ ]. Now when the tunnel was cut through, each of the excavators hewed through to meet his fellow, axe against axe, and the waters began flowing from the source toward the reservoir for 1,200 cubits, 100 cubits being the height of the rock above the heads of the excavators.”

Borowski suggests that the fissure described above was possibly followed by the excavators and that is how the two teams were able to meet up in the middle.

In 1890, the inscription was broken off the wall and eventually sold to a Greek citizen of Jerusalem. The Turkish government acquired the pieces of the inscription and placed them in the Museum of the Ancient Orient in Istanbul.