No, since King Hezekiah had earlier arranged for his men “to stop up the waters of the springs that were outside the city.” (2 Chron. 32:2-4) Thus the besieging Assyrians would be hard pressed to find enough water for themselves. Then what possible water would the Jews have, with Hezekiah and the people confined “like a bird in a cage,” as Sennacherib boasted? Yes, the Jews knew that there was water aplenty in the cave of the Gihon spring on the eastern slope of the city. That spring was “stopped up” or hidden so the Assyrians would not know of it. Still, Gihon was outside Jerusalem’s walls. So how could it keep the Jews alive?

The Bible tells us. It says that Hezekiah “stopped up the upper source of the waters of Gihon and kept them directed straight along down to the west to the city of David.” (2 Chron. 32:30; 2 Ki. 20:20) How did he do that? By a water tunnel cut out of solid rock. That tunnel is still there. Experts view it as “one of the great engineering feats of antiquity.” And you as a visitor can wade through it.

It seems that the spring of Gihon (sometimes now called the Virgin’s Fountain) on the lower slope of the Kidron Valley was in a cave. So the ancient Jebusite inhabitants of the city dug out some of the rock at the back and sunk a shaft down from inside the nearby wall. They could thus obtain some water by letting buckets down to the water channel. David’s men may well have sneaked into the city through this shaft. (2 Sam. 5:8) Yet in Hezekiah’s time the city’s population was much larger. Hence, he undertook the cutting out of a long tunnel that would divert ample water to a pool (Siloam) on the western side of the city inside the protection of the walls. (See the small map.)

What an undertaking that was! One team of workers dug from the south, from the pool of Siloam. Another team came from the north, from Gihon. Think of the work involved in chipping​—with hand tools, not with pneumatic drills or modern explosives—​out of solid rock a tunnel averaging about six feet (1.8 meters) high and about two feet (.6 meters) wide. But what is more staggering is its length, 1,749 feet (533 meters). Imagine, through solid rock for almost a third of a mile!

[Map on page 413]

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Where Temple Was Later Built

CITY OF DAVID

Tyropean Valley

Gihon

Kidron Valley

Siloam

Wall

[Map on page 413]

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HEZEKIAH’S TUNNEL

Gihon 1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Siloam 13