Valley of the Dead. ―― Tombs of the Judges. ―― Of El-Messahney.
―― Of the Kings. ―― Valley of the Kidron. ―― Pillar of Absalom.
―― Traditional Tombs. ―― Jews’ Cemetery. ―― Funeral Procession.
―― Mount of Offense. ―― Virgin’s Fountain. ―― Gardens of
Siloam. ―― Bridal Party. ―― Pool of Siloam. ―― Of En-Rogel. ――
Vale of Hinnom. ―― Burning of Children. ―― Valley of Slaughter.
―― Potters’ Field. ―― Solomon’s Coronation. ―― Pools of Gihon.
―― Pool of Hezekiah. ―― Supply of Water.
FROM time immemorial, nations have interred their dead with
extraordinary care. Along the dividing line separating the Libyan
Desert from the fertile plains of the Nile, the Egyptians constructed
tombs of marble and porphyry, and reared the stupendous pyramids
of Ghizeh, Abooseer, and Sakkara, for mausoleums for their renowned
kings. Beside their noblest highways the Greeks and Romans placed
the sepulchres and funeral pillars of their distinguished citizens.
And the Christian cemeteries of our own day are as remarkable for the
grandeur of their cenotaphs as for the beauty of their situation. Not
less sensibly affected by a passion so tender, the Jews prepared the
final resting-place of their beloved dead with sincere affection. With
them it became a religious pride to beautify the sepulchres of their
ancestors, and carefully preserve them from age to age. Though like
other nations in these particulars, it is a fact no less singular than
true that not a line has ever been found on or in any of the ancient
tombs in Palestine;[132] hence their identification is now, as it ever
has been, by tradition rather than by inscription and epitaph. It is
not therefore strange that, with few exceptions, the sepulchres of
kings and prophets are either entirely unknown, or are identified by
mere conjecture. Like other works of art, Jewish tombs advanced from a
crude beginning to a state of artistic elegance. Originally they were
natural excavations in the rocks, as is the Cave of Machpelah;[133] but
in the advancement of national refinement they were adorned with all
that art could invent and wealth procure,[134] as are the Sepulchres of
the Kings. With slight variation in the details, there is a similarity
of construction in those of the latter class.
Usually a chamber was excavated in the living rock below the surface,
in the sides of which receptacles were prepared large enough to receive
a human form, and arranged in tiers with much regularity; when these
were occupied, a door was cut in the perpendicular rock, and other
chambers were adjoined either on the sides, in the rear, or below.
Selected alike for its seclusion and its rocky sides, the Valley of
Jehoshaphat is a vast cemetery. At its head are located the “Tombs
of the Judges.” Though their origin is involved in mystery, they are
generally supposed to have contained the remains of the members of
the Jewish Sanhedrim, and the supposition is confirmed by the seventy
niches within them, coinciding with the number of members composing
that venerable tribunal.
Excavated in the side of a low rock, the entrance is reached by a
descending path. The exterior is tastefully ornamented with a pediment
resting on plain but handsome mouldings, adorned with tracery of leaves
and flowers, and with a blazing torch in the centre and one at either
end. Over the façade a few olives bend down their branches droopingly,
and before it are the accumulated mounds of many centuries. Descending
into the vestibule, which is thirteen feet long and nine wide, we
passed through a richly moulded doorway into an ante-chamber eight feet
high, twenty long, and nineteen wide. On the sides of the vault are
thirteen loculi, or receptacles for the dead. In the southern wall a
door opens to another chamber eight feet square, having in its sides
nine arched recesses. In the east wall a second door leads to a similar
vault, from which a flight of steps descends to chambers below. Silence
and darkness now reign supreme in these mansions of the dead, and of
all that was once human not a bone remains.
Illustration: TOMBS OF THE JUDGES.
Less than two miles to the northeast are the “Tombs of el-Messahney,”
discovered by our distinguished countryman of Joppa.[135] Around them
are the remains of what was once a large town, such as hewn stones
and broken columns. The rock in front of the tomb has been beveled
in imitation of Jewish masonry. Formerly an imposing entablature
surmounted an open porch, but only a portion of it remains. The
entrance is through a large doorway spanned by a round arch, and the
spacious chamber within differs from all others in Palestine by having
a window. Of the seventeen recesses which enter the wall endwise, there
is one nobler than the rest and twice as large. Here, no doubt, the
lifeless form of some distinguished person lay in state, under the
light of the window, till his successor in office became his successor
to the tomb.
Half a mile to the north from the Damascus Gate, and sixty yards to
the right of the Nablous road, are the “Tombs of the Kings.” In the
western side of a sunken court hewn in the rock, twenty feet deep and
ninety square, is a grand portico fifteen feet high, thirty-nine wide,
and seventeen deep. Formerly this portal was decorated with two columns
and as many pilasters, which, however, are now gone, except a fragment
of one of the capitals depending from the architrave. Over the entrance
was a heavy cornice and frieze, adorned with clusters of grapes and
wreaths of flowers, alternating over a continuous garland of fruit
and foliage, extending down the sides to the ground. But time and
plunderers have defaced this elegant façade, leaving it a wreck of
former grandeur. A solitary palm now rears its graceful form near the
spot, and ferns grow out of the cracked face and sides of the portal,
covering the broken entablature.
Illustration: TOMBS OF THE KINGS.
Entering the portico and turning to the right, we found the entrance to
the sepulchre to be at once peculiar and complicated. Judging from what
remains, the doorway was excavated below the floor of the vestibule,
and was approached by a covered passage-way tunneled through the
solid rock. At the commencement of this subterranean way there was a
trap-door which was secretly covered with a slab. To secure greater
safety against those who would sacrilegiously disturb the repose of the
dead, there was beneath this trap-door a deep pit so located that none
save the initiated, and they only with the greatest caution, could land
upon its brink as they stepped upon it. The door of the tomb in turn
was guarded with the utmost secrecy. It consisted of a heavy circular
slab which was made to run in a groove. The groove inclined upward,
and the slab could only be turned by means of a lever. To add to the
difficulty of turning the door, both the groove and the slab were
nearly concealed by the side of the passage-way, and to the left of
the end of the passage-way there was a smaller slab sliding in another
groove, which, running at right angles with the former, served as a
bolt, and, when pushed in, was received into an aperture cut in the
stone door, not only rendering the door immovable, but defying all
effort to open it except by the initiated. Though to all appearance
these precautions were sufficient to protect this mansion of the
dead from the hand of the despoiler, yet, to render the repose of
the departed doubly sure, there was an inner door of great weight,
so arranged as to fit exactly in the deeply-recessed doorway, and so
hung on pivots that it yielded to the slightest pressure from without,
while it immediately fell back to its place as soon as the pressure
was withdrawn, sealing the doom of the unfortunate one who had entered,
as it fitted so exactly in its place that it was impossible to open it
again from the inside. The peculiar construction of the door and its
rolling in a groove explains the anxious inquiry of the Marys, “Who
shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?”
Creeping through the low entrance, we lit our candles, and found
the interior to consist of five chambers, connected by narrow aisles,
and in the sides of the chambers are arched recesses for the dead.
The largest of these chambers is nineteen feet square. Its walls are
of solid rock, hewn smooth. On its south side are two low doorways
which lead to as many chambers, and on the north side a third doorway
opens to another vault, which is strewn with fragments of elegantly
sculptured marble. Here was found that magnificent lid of a sarcophagus
which is at present in the Louvre in Paris, where it bears the name
of “David’s Tomb.” Beneath these vaults are two others, reached by
an inclined plane and a flight of stone steps. Being more concealed
than the rest, and containing the most elegant sarcophagi, they were
designed, no doubt, for the final repose of the most distinguished
persons. But, despite such extraordinary precautions, these tombs have
been plundered, the dust of the dead scattered, the sarcophagi broken,
and the treasures they contained extracted.
Though by common consent they are called the “Tombs of the Kings,” yet
there are no sepulchres beyond the walls of Jerusalem as to the origin
and founder of which there is such a variety of opinions. On these
points the tombs themselves are dumb, as they contain neither device
nor inscription; and, with one or two ambiguous exceptions, history
is likewise silent. M. de Sauley declares them to be the “Tombs of
the Kings of Judah;” Mr. Ferguson pronounces their “architecture to be
later than the reign of Constantine;” Mr. Williams asserts them to be
the “sepulchral monument of Herod the Great;” Dr. Schultz identifies
them as the “Royal Caverns,” mentioned by Josephus as being on a
line with the Agrippian Wall; Dr. Robinson ascribes them to Helena,
the widow of King Monobazus, of Adiabene, who, with her son Izates,
having espoused the Jewish faith, settled in Jerusalem in the reign
of Claudius Cæsar, and her son, dying in the Holy City, was here
interred;[136] while Dr. Thompson and Dr. Barclay regard them as having
been constructed by the Asmonean kings. The latter conclusion is most
in harmony with the facts of sacred and profane history. The kings
of Judah were interred on Mount Zion; Herod the Great was entombed
at Herodium, where there are other vaults for his descendants; other
caverns along the Agrippian Wall correspond in location with the
words of Josephus better than these; and the thirty loculi within this
mausoleum are twenty-eight too many for Helena and her son Izates.
Passing down the Valley of Jehoshaphat to the northeast corner of the
city wall, we entered the large olive-groves which cover the bed of the
valley and the sides of the adjacent hills. Attended by their Nubian
slaves, the women and children of Jerusalem spent the hours of the day
here, reclining beneath these trees. Opposite St. Stephen’s Gate is the
traditional rock where Stephen was stoned to death. Above it, to the
north, is the supposed site of Calvary. Below it, to the east, is the
stone bridge which spans the Kidron. It is 140 feet long, and seventeen
high from the bottom of the vale to the top of the arch. It is firmly
built, and as it has stood for thousands of years, it will endure
for ages to come, if not destroyed by violence. The Brook Kidron is a
winter torrent, or the accumulation of streamlets from the hill-sides,
formed by the rains of winter. Though not seen in the dry season, the
stream continues to flow several feet below the surface of small loose
stones, sending up distinctly a low murmuring sound.
A thousand feet below the bridge is “Absalom’s Pillar.” It is of
limestone, cut out of the rock, and detached from the base of Olivet
by a path excavated in three of its sides. It consists of a square
platform, reached by a flight of steps; a basement of solid rock
twenty-four feet square, a square attic seven feet high, and a circular
attic, surmounted with an inverted funnel-shaped dome, the point
spreading out like an opening flower. Though its apparent altitude is
less than fifty feet, yet, owing to the accumulation of stones around
its base, its actual height is not ascertainable. The exterior of
the basement is ornamented with columns and pilasters, on the Ionic
capitals of which rests a Doric architrave. Above the first entablature
are two courses of large, well-dressed stones, on which is traced a
small cornice, and on the dome above is a cornice resembling rope-work.
Within are two chambers, reached by the original doorway on the east,
and by a breach on the west, which has been made by the inhabitants of
the city, who hold the memory of Absalom in profound contempt. Within
and around it are heaps of stones, thrown there by Christian, Jew, and
Moslem, in condemnation of a son’s rebellion against his father, and,
as a more expressive mark of their disapprobation, they spit upon it
as they pass. This is probably the pillar which Absalom in his lifetime
reared up for himself in the “King’s Dale.”[137] Being a mixture of
Grecian, Roman, and Egyptian architecture, the style is against the
supposition; but as it was customary in the days of Herod to “garnish
the sepulchres of the righteous,” so the admirers of the rebel may have
reconstructed his “Pillar” conformably with the architectural taste of
the Herodian age.
Illustration: ABSALOM’S PILLAR (RESTORED).
A little to the north is the reputed tomb of King Jehoshaphat,
from whom the valley takes its name. It is a subterranean sepulchre,
extending several feet into the mountain. The entrance is through an
ornamental portal, consisting of four columns and a pediment, adorned
with foliage, cut in the face of the perpendicular rock. Believing it
contains a copy of their Law, and other valuable manuscripts, the Jews
guard this mansion of the dead with ceaseless vigils. But this can
not be the tomb of the king whose memory it bears, as it is distinctly
recorded that Jehoshaphat was buried with his fathers in the city
of David.[138] The false location of his tomb has given a false name
to the valley itself. Both Josephus and the sacred writers call it
the “Valley of the Kidron,” which signifies “Vale of Filth,” from
the refuse matter that flowed into it from the cess-pool in the rock
beneath the Temple. Nor can this be the place to which the prophet
alludes when he declares that God will gather all nations into the
Valley of Jehoshaphat for judgment.[139] Its limits are not equal to
such an assemblage. The name Jehoshaphat meaning “Jehovah judgeth,” the
allusion is metaphorical, the royal name being applied to some unknown
valley――the rendezvous of the arraigned nations.
A few paces to the south of “Absalom’s Pillar” is the traditional
tomb of James the Just, where he concealed himself during the interval
between the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord, and where he was
finally interred after his martyrdom. It is a cavern fifty feet long,
fifteen deep, and ten broad, with an entrance high up in the face of
the rock consisting of four Doric columns.
Just south of this apostolic tomb is the monument of Zachariah, who
was stoned to death in the reign of Joash,[140] and who is alluded to
by the Savior as having perished between the Temple and the altar.[141]
Unlike the others, it is solid, designed merely as a sepulchral
monument to the memory of the martyr. It is a monolithic, four-sided
pyramid, whose height is equal to its base, each side measuring twenty
feet. Separated from the parent rock by passage-ways on three sides,
it is ornamented with columns and pilasters, each crowned with a plain
Ionic capital, and above which is an entablature of acanthus leaves.
From the bed of the Kidron Valley to the Bethany Road on the crest of
the hill, and from the “Pillar of Absalom” to the village of Siloam,
is the cemetery of the Jews. Each grave is marked with a plain slab
imbedded in the earth, and bears a Hebrew inscription. National love
and religious superstition induce the descendants of Abraham to seek a
place of sepulture within this vale. Expecting the restoration of their
kingdom, they desire to sleep in death beneath the sceptre of their
posterity. Believing that the final judgment will take place here, and
that to have a part in the resurrection of the just they must here be
interred, in their old age many come from distant lands to be entombed
beside their countrymen. If so unfortunate as to expire in a strange
land, they die in the faith that their bodies will burrow their way
through the earth to this consecrated spot. Here, morning and evening,
venerable men prostrate themselves upon the ground in anticipation of
death, and hither Jewish women come to weep over buried affection.
Illustration: TOMBS IN THE VALLEY OF JEHOSHAPHAT.
On the opposite side of the valley, covering all that portion of Mount
Moriah not included within the Haram wall, is a Moslem cemetery of
great age. The graves are covered with two layers of hewn stone, with
an open space between them in the centre, and ornamented with two
upright shafts, one at either end. The material is limestone, and,
according to a custom prevalent in Eastern countries, the tombs
are whitewashed, illustrating the appropriateness of the Savior’s
comparison when he likened the Scribes and Pharisees unto “whited
sepulchres.”[142]
While standing here a funeral procession came out of St. Stephen’s
Gate. The bier was borne upon the shoulders of men, and, in marching
to the grave, the procession rushed on tumultuously, chanting, in a low
monotone, “God is God, and Mohammed is his prophet.” Believing there
is virtue in bearing the dead to the tomb, each man in rapid succession
became a pall-bearer. Being persons of different height, the corpse
rose and fell according to the altitude of the bearer. On reaching the
grave a confused circle was formed, a funeral hymn was chanted, and,
after the interment of the dead, an almoner, who had been appointed
by the deceased, distributed paras to the throng of beggars who always
attend funerals.
Near the grave stood a group of women, swinging their arms, striking
their breasts, and howling in the most frantic manner. They were the
hired mourners so frequently alluded to in the Bible. When a Moslem
dies these mourning women are sent for, who recount, in an extempore
chant, the virtues of the dead. They are persons past the pride and
beauty of womanhood, and are held in high esteem by the community.
Weeping being their profession, tears are at their command at the
shortest notice. Their wail is the harshest sound that ever fell on
mortal ear, and the habitual contortions of the face render them the
impersonation of ugliness. As in all other vocations, the woman who
weeps the freest, howls the loudest, and contorts the ugliest, is the
chief mourner, and has the most extensive and lucrative practice. To
these persons Solomon alludes in his description of death――“and the
mourners go about the streets;”[143] and St. Matthew refers to them in
his account of our Lord’s visit to the ruler’s house, “Who, when he saw
the minstrels and the people making a noise, he said unto them, Give
place, for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth.”[144]
This cemetery is a place of frequent resort, where, at all hours of
the day, groups of females may be seen lamenting some departed friend.
As of old, they carry a tear bottle, consisting of two small vials
incased in a cushion, and so adjusted that the necks of the vials touch
the eyes to catch the falling tear. Though as extensively used by the
Mohammedans as they were by the Greeks, yet they are not so graceful
as the tapering lachrymaries of the latter. The material is coarser,
and the manufacture cruder, indicating a lower civilization. To these
lachrymaries David alludes in those tender words of his, “Thou tellest
my wanderings; put thou my tears into thy bottle.”[145]
Descending the dry and stony bed of the Kidron, the path soon
diverged, leading to the wretched town of Siloam, clinging to the rocky
sides of the Mount of Offense. In the hill are natural and artificial
caves, used in former times for sepulchres, but now inhabited by 200
Troglodytes, who dwell in poverty, filth, and crime. As a befitting
background to such homes of woe, the Hill of Scandal rises up behind
them. It is long and high, rocky and barren. On its summit Solomon
reared altars to Chemosh and Moloch, and burnt incense and offered
sacrifices to strange gods.[146] From an offense so abominable the hill
takes its name. Unable to express their detestation for the idolatrous
acts here performed, topographers call it “Mount of Corruption,” “Mount
of Offense,” and “Hill of Scandal;” and, as if to typify the moral
desolation of that great man’s heart, Nature has planted neither shrub,
nor flower, nor grass thereon, but on all its sides, and over all its
summit, her sterile hand has scattered fragments of flint.
Directly opposite the village of Siloam is the famous Fountain of the
Virgin, situated at the base of Mount Ophel. It derives its name from
the monkish legend that here the mother of Jesus was accustomed to wash
her linen. The Turks, however, call it the “Fountain of the Dragon,”
from the superstition that, as it is a remitting fountain, a dragon
lives within it, who stops the water when awake, but when he sleeps the
water flows. The reservoir is a tunnel-like cavern, twenty-five feet
deep, excavated in the southern side of Ophel. Sixteen steps lead down
to a platform twelve feet wide, over which a chamber has been built of
old stones ten feet high and eighteen long. From this platform there is
a flight of fourteen steps, from beneath the lowest of which the water
issues, which, after rising to the height of three feet, flows over a
pebbled bed, and, passing through a channel, mingles with the waters of
Siloam. Penetrating the mountain, this winding channel is two feet wide,
from four to twenty high, and more than 1750 long.
Illustration: FOUNTAIN OF THE VIRGIN.
The source of this fountain is unknown. Though subterranean
water-courses, which penetrate Zion, Ophel, and Moriah, have been
explored, yet it has never been ascertained whether the water flows
from a fountain beneath the Temple area, or from some great central
reservoir in the heart of one of the hills, from which are supplied, by
lateral conduits, the numerous wells, cisterns, and fountains that here
abound. For ages it has been a remitting fountain, flowing at intervals
two or three times a day, and suggesting to the mind of some that this
is the Pool of Bethesda. Its location, however, is more in harmony
with Nehemiah’s description of the King’s Pool.[147] For centuries the
taste of the water varied at different seasons of the year, being at
intervals sweet, bitter, brackish, and tasteless, which arises from the
mineral and vegetable substances through which it flows, or from the
waters of the bath, coming down from above and mingling with that of
the fountain.
Winding round the foot of Ophel, we entered the delightful gardens of
Siloam, called in Scripture the “King’s Dale.”[148] They extend from
Kefr Silwân to the Pool of En-Rogel, and cover an area a mile in length
and 150 yards in breadth. Unequaled in fertility, these gardens surpass
in beauty any other spot in the environs of Jerusalem. Irrigated by
rills from the neighboring fountains, they yield abundantly the most
delicious figs, almonds, and olives, together with many varieties of
Syrian vegetables. Rented by many tenants, the land is divided into
small plots; and when viewed from an adjacent hill-side, where is seen
to best advantage the deep green of the herbs, the maroon color of the
soil, and the bright hues of the flowers, it has the appearance of an
elegant carpet.
As in happier days, so it is still the scene of festivity and delight.
Here children frolic in all the freedom of Arab life, and here the
veiled beauties of the city recline in sweet repose beneath the shade
of fruit-trees. On the green slopes of Ophel a group of Jewish maidens
were dancing to the sound of the timbrel and song. It was a bridal
party celebrating the nuptials of a happy couple on their ancient hills,
and in the golden light of their ancestral sun. The scene recalled the
triumphal song and dance of Miriam and her women on the shores of the
Red Sea.[149] One charming creature, more beauteous than the rest,
led the song and dance, while her fair and joyous maidens responded
in chorus with voice and instrument, and followed in the merry dance.
Unlike the veiled and seclusive Moslem women, these fair daughters of
Abraham were exceedingly affable, and with open, happy faces bade us
welcome to the festive scene.
Less than 500 yards from the Fountain of the Virgin, the Tyropean
Valley descends, dividing Mount Zion from Mount Ophel, and intersecting
the Vale of the Kidron. Its mouth is fifty feet higher than the bed of
the latter, and is reached by verdant terraces. Two hundred and fifty
feet up the valley, and situated in a nook in the mountain, is the Pool
of Siloam. The water flows from Mary’s Fountain, through an irregular
and semicircular stone conduit, conducting it into a rectangular
reservoir fifty feet long, fifteen broad, and nineteen deep. The
pool is constructed of masonry, now green with the moss of ages. In
the southwest corner a flight of stone steps leads to the edge of the
water. Though the western side is much broken, yet time has dealt more
gently with the opposite portion, in which are six marble columns half
imbedded in the wall, apparently designed to support an arch or roof
over the fountain. In the centre of the pool is “a nameless column,
with a buried base.” In the northeast end a flight of steps leads down
to a vaulted chamber excavated in the rock, where the water is gathered,
flowing in from the Virgin’s Fountain. From this reservoir it flows
beneath the steps into the pool, where, having accumulated to the
depth of three feet, it falls through an aperture into a subterranean
aqueduct, conducting it to the gardens of Siloam below.
Illustration: POOL OF SILOAM.
With unusual accuracy the inspired writers refer to this celebrated
pool, leaving us without doubt as to its location and identity. By
a bold metonymy, Isaiah substitutes the “waters of Shiloah that go
softly” for Jehovah, and the waters of the Euphrates for Rezin and
Remaliah’s son, reminding the Jews, as they had rejected the former,
that those of the latter should overflow their land.[150] Referring
to repairs made by Shallun, the son of Col-hozeh, Nehemiah speaks
of the rebuilding of the “wall of the pool of Siloah by the king’s
gardens;”[151] and hither Jesus sent the blind man to “wash in the pool
of Siloam.”[152]
Some suppose this to be the Bethesda of the New Testament, and there
are many circumstances favoring the supposition.[153] Owing to the
difficulty of the descent, the impotent man could have justly said,
“Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the
pool.” It is certainly the fountain to which the Savior sent the blind
man, intimating thereby that here the infirm were gathered; and, in
view of its natural scenery, it is a beautiful place for an angel to
come.
A few feet to the south are the remains of a larger reservoir,
separated from Siloam by an embankment, and bounded on the south by a
causeway extending across the mouth of the Tyropean Valley. It is now
dry, and used as a garden. On the causeway stands an aged mulberry-tree,
marking the traditional spot where Isaiah was sawn asunder by order of
King Manasseh. Its trunk is gnarled, bent, and hollow, and supported
by a circular wall of loose stones. As if tenacious to perpetuate
the memory of the greatest of prophets, new limbs have grown from
those which are nearly decayed. Here, on a mound of unhewn stones,
the villagers of Kefr Silwân hold their court, which in derision the
Franks call “Congress Hall.” The court was not in session when we were
there, but the judges, old, ragged, and filthy, were wrapped in their
coarse garments, sleeping beneath the prophetic tree. In plucking a
leaf from this ancient shade, I unfortunately stumbled over one of
them, extorting a most uncourtly grunt. Asking his pardon as my only
reparation, I hastily retreated, leaving him and his companions to
their slumbers.
From this artificial mound the path winds round the base of Mount
Zion, and, after rapidly descending into the valley, terminates at the
Fountain of En-Rogel. This fountain is situated at the junction of the
Kidron Valley and the Vale of Hinnom, and is the oldest and largest one
in the environs of Jerusalem. Quadrilateral in form, and constructed
of large hewn stones, it is 125 feet deep, and is inclosed with a small
rude well-house, around which are several watering-troughs. Though the
usual depth of the water is fifty feet, yet in the rainy season the
fountain overflows. Its source is unknown. It is the favorite well with
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and thousands of gallons of its sweet
waters are daily carried into the city in goatskins on the backs of
donkeys.
By the Arabs it is called the “Well of Job;” by the Franks, the
“Well of Nehemiah;” but in Scripture it is known as the “Waters
of En-Rogel.”[154] Neither history nor tradition gives a reason
for calling it after the illustrious sufferer of Uz. Job may be
a corruption of Joab, the famous warrior, who, with others, here
conspired against the king, and the well may have been so named from
this circumstance. According to the apocryphal book of the Maccabees
it is called after Nehemiah, as here he found the holy fire, which
the priests had secreted prior to their captivity in Persia.[155]
In partitioning the land into tribal possessions, Joshua fixed the
boundary-line between Judah and Benjamin at this fountain, and called
it En-Rogel, or the “Fullers’ Well”――the place where fullers were
accustomed to tread their clothes.[156]
During Absalom’s rebellion it was around this fountain that Jonathan
and Ahimaaz secreted themselves, waiting instruction from Hushai,
which was brought to them by a “wench;”[157] and years after, when the
venerable David was sinking into the grave, his ungrateful son Adonijah
conspired against the youthful Solomon, and was proclaimed king “by the
stone Zoheleth, which is by En-Rogel.”[158]
At this well the Valley of the Kidron and the Vale of Hinnom form a
conjunction, after which the valley passes between the Hill of Evil
Council on the west and the Mount of Offense on the east, pursuing its
course through the wilderness of Judea to Mâr Sâba, where it takes the
name of Wady en-Nâr, and thence continues southeastward to the Dead Sea.
From En-Rogel the Valley of Hinnom runs due west for half a mile, when,
turning abruptly northward, it extends as far as the Yâffa Gate, from
which point it gently inclines westward to the Upper Pool of Gihon.
The generic name of this deep winding gorge is “The Valley of the
Son of Hinnom,” so designated by Joshua as bounding Jerusalem on the
south.[159] Who Hinnom was, or why this valley bears his name, are
facts on which sacred and profane historians are silent. He is, however,
one of those men who have left to posterity a name without a biography.
Historically this vale is divided into two sections. From En-Rogel
to the southwestern spur of Mount Zion it is known in Scripture as
Tophet――meaning “tabret-drum”――from the custom of beating drums to
drown the cries of those children which were here burnt in sacrifice to
Moloch. Here, in this deep retired glen, stood the brazen image of the
idol of Ammon, with the body of a man and the head of an ox. Within the
statue was a large furnace, into which, at the appointed time, and amid
the wild shouts of the multitude and the beating of drums, the tender
victims were thrown. First placed on the burning arms and legs of the
idol, they were then caused to fall into the devouring fires within.
Significantly does the name of this monster imply “Horrid King,” as
here, at his shrine, were practiced the most revolting rites ever
witnessed under the sun. It is to such scenes Jeremiah refers in his
denunciation of the children of Judah: “They have built the high places
of Tophet, which are in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their
sons and daughters in the fire, which I commanded them not, neither
came it into my heart.”[160] Revolting at such a sight, Jehovah sends
the same prophet to curse the ground for man’s sake: “Therefore, behold,
the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be called Tophet,
nor the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for
they shall bury in Tophet till there be no place.”[161] In less than
fourteen years from the announcement of these fearful words the valley
was defiled by King Josiah, who filled it with the bones of the dead,
and thereby rendered it ceremonially unclean, so that no Jew could
enter it.[162] But a more terrible doom awaited it, and a more literal
fulfillment of prophecy was to take place. Here, where the shrine of
Moloch had stood, the last struggle between the Jews and the Romans
occurred,[163] and from the carnage of that bloody scene the vale
received the name of “The Valley of Slaughter.” The dead were here
interred till there was no room to bury others, and the historian
verifies prophecy by this ghastly picture: “Manneus, the son of
Lazarus, came running to Titus at this very time, and told him that
there had been carried out through that one gate no fewer than 115,880
dead bodies, in the interval between the fourteenth day of the month
Xanthicus, when the Romans pitched their camp by the city, and the
first day of the month Panemus. This was itself a prodigious multitude;
and though this man was not himself set as a governor at that gate, yet
was he appointed to pay the public stipend for carrying these bodies
out, and so was obliged of necessity to number them, while the rest
were buried by their relatives; though all their burial was this, to
bring them away and cast them out of the city. After this man there
ran away to Titus many of the eminent citizens, and told him the entire
number of the poor that were dead, and that no fewer than 600,000 were
thrown out of the gates, though still the number of the rest could not
be discovered.”[164]
It was in view of the detestable custom of burning human beings to
Moloch in this valley, together with the perpetual fire kept burning
to consume the filth from the city thrown here, that the latter Jews
regarded it a fit emblem of hell, and applied the Greek name of the
valley――Gehenna――to the place of future torments. The receptacle
of the dead carcasses of beasts and of refuse matter, both animal
and vegetable, here the worm sought its food, which, together with
the perpetual fires of the vale, suggested to the Savior’s mind
those solemn words, “Where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not
quenched.”[165] And now, as if by appointment, a deep gloom hangs near
this doomed spot, and the physical features of the valley reflect its
horrid history. The gorge is deep and narrow, the cliffs are broken
and barren, the hill on the north throws its shadow to meet below the
deeper shades of the hill on the south, while the rocks are red as if
scorched by eternal fires. The sides of the Hill of Evil Council, which
rises from its southern side, are perforated with tombs, now the abode
of shepherds and homeless wanderers. Midway up this hill is Aceldama,
the “Potter’s Field,” the price of “thirty pieces of silver.”[166]
Unmarked by boundaries, the field contains a gloomy vault, sixty feet
square and thirty deep; over it is a long massive building of stone,
with an arched roof, but open at each end, and on the bottom lay the
bones of some poor stranger. Strangely inclined to invest all things
connected with New Testament history with the supernatural, the monks
assert that the soil of this field possesses the rare power of reducing
dead bodies to a perfect mould in the brief space of twenty-four
hours; and, according to early writers, the Empress Helena caused
270 ship-loads of it to be removed to Rome, where it was deposited in
the Campo Santo, and where it preserved the bodies of the Romans, but
consumed those of strangers dying in the Eternal City. On the summit
of the hill is a small Latin chapel, standing on the legendary site
of the “country house of Annas,” in which the Jews conspired against
Jesus, and from their “evil council” the hill takes its name. Within
the court of the chapel is the traditional olive-tree on which “Judas
hanged himself.”[167] It is gnarled, pealed, and split, and is the most
villainous-looking tree that ever offended human sight.
The second section of the ravine is called “The Valley of Gihon.”
Running north and south, its sides and bottom are tilled, covered with
patches of wheat, barley, and lentils, and dotted with olive and other
fruit-trees. Situated in the broadest part of the vale, and directly
opposite the Tomb of David on Mount Zion, is the Lower Pool of Gihon.
It is a reservoir 600 feet long, 260 broad, and forty deep, and, when
full, contains a sheet of water of more than three and a half acres
in extent. Its sides are formed by the opposite hills, which have been
excavated for the purpose, and the ends are inclosed with walls forty
feet high. It is now dry, and the flat ledge of rocks on its eastern
side is used by the peasants for a threshing-floor. Seventy-three yards
to the west is Solomon’s Aqueduct, which, first running parallel with
the western side of this pool, crosses the valley at its northern end,
and, after winding round the base of Zion, gradually ascends the mount,
and enters the Temple inclosure at the southwest corner. It was from
this aqueduct that the Lower Pool was formerly supplied with water. At
the southern end of the pool there is an embankment sufficiently broad
for a road, leading from the Gate of Zion to Bethlehem and Hebron.
In the centre of the path is an artificial fountain, into which water
was conducted from the aqueduct by means of a branch pipe, and thence
distributed into troughs for the accommodation of man and beast.
Illustration: LOWER POOL OF GIHON.
It was at this pool the youthful Solomon was anointed king in the
room of his father David, and up the slopes of Zion he ascended, “and
all the people came out after him, and the people piped with pipes,
and rejoiced with great joy, so that the earth rent with the sound of
them.”[168]
From this point the Valley of the Gihon gradually ascends. Opposite
the Yâffa Gate it is forty feet deep and 500 wide. Here in its ancient
bed three roads meet, one leading to Bethlehem, a second to the home
of Samson, a third to the “hill country of Judea.” From here the
hills recede on either side, and the valley becomes broad and shallow,
covered with grain and planted with olives. Seven hundred yards above
the gate is the Upper Pool of Gihon. It is situated at what may be
properly called the head of the valley, which spreads out into an
almost level plain. Around it is the oldest Moslem cemetery in the
environs of Jerusalem. Like its companion, it is a large tank, 300 feet
long, 200 wide, and twenty deep, formed of hewn stones laid in cement,
and coated with the same. The bottom is reached by two flights of stone
steps. Near the top a stone spout projects from the northern wall,
through which the waters that come down the inclined plains around it
flow into the pool. As there are neither springs nor the remains of
ancient conduits adjoining the reservoir, the original source of its
supply is a matter of conjecture. It probably had some connection
with the Fountain of Gihon, located on the same side of the city, and
which was sealed by King Hezekiah when the Assyrians threatened an
invasion.[169]
Ahaz was standing here when the intelligence reached him that Rezin,
king of Syria, and Pekah, king of Israel, were approaching Jerusalem
to war against him; and in that critical moment the Lord said unto
Isaiah, “Go forth now to Ahaz, thou and Shear-jashub, thy son, at the
end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s
field;”[170] and, thirty years later, here Rabshakeh, with a great army,
stood and delivered the haughty message of Sennacherib to the ministers
of Hezekiah.[171]
From the bottom of the southern wall of this pool there is now a stone
conduit of rude workmanship, which conducts the water to the Pool of
Hezekiah within the city. It is formed of large stones carelessly laid
together, and for some distance it is subterranean, but rises to the
surface on approaching the town.
The Pool of Hezekiah is just within the Yâffa Gate, surrounded with
dwellings, and is the oldest fountain in the Holy City. Adjoining
it are the Greek Convent, the residence of the Protestant Bishop of
Jerusalem, the Monastery of the Copts, and the Mediterranean Hotel.
Measuring 250 feet long, 150 wide, and eighteen deep, it is capable of
holding water enough to supply half of the city. The bottom is formed
of the native rock, leveled and coated with cement, and its sides are
walled with solid masonry similarly covered. Though designed to supply
the citizens with drinking-water, it is now a Moslem bath, called
Berket el-Hammân, and usually contains six feet of water. In laying
the foundation for the Coptic Convent, the builder discovered an
ancient wall, two feet thick, constructed of large hewn stones, located
fifty-seven feet from the north wall of the reservoir, and running
parallel to it, proving that the pool is less in dimensions than when
first made, and also attesting its great antiquity. This pool is among
the unquestionable landmarks of the city, and the allusions to it in
the Bible are numerous and explicit. Of Hezekiah it is said, “He made a
pool and a conduit, and brought water into the city;”[172] and that “he
stopped the upper water-course of Gihon, and brought it straight down
to the west side of the city of David.”[173] Threatened by the fierce
Sennacherib, whose powerful army was marching against his capital,
“Hezekiah took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop the
water of the fountains which were without the city, and they did help
him. So there was gathered much people together, who stopped all the
fountains, and the brook that ran through the midst of the land, saying,
Why should the kings of Assyria come and find much water?”[174] To
deprive his enemies of water, and, at the same time, provide a supply
for his own subjects, he sealed the fountains outside of the city, and,
by constructing subterranean channels, conducted the water into large
tanks within the walls, among which is the pool that bears his name.
So secretly was the work accomplished, that the fountain of the Gihon
remains a secret with the dead to this day, awaiting the skill and
patience of the explorer to uncover its hidden waters, and trace its
buried channels to their fountain-head.
Illustration: POOL OF HEZEKIAH.
In digging to lay the foundation of the English Church on Mount
Zion, the architect came to a vaulted chamber, resting on the living
rock, twenty feet below the surface of the ground, constructed of fine
masonry, and remaining in perfect repair. Entering it, he descended
a flight of stone steps, and at the bottom found an immense conduit,
partly hewn out of the solid rock, and partly built of even courses of
masonry, lined with cement an inch thick. He traced it east and west
for 200 feet, finding, at intervals of several feet, openings in the
upper side, through which buckets could be lowered to dip the water
up. Had permission been granted, he might have traced it to one of the
numerous sealed fountains of the ancient city.
One thing strikes the student of Jewish history as no less marvelous
than true, that, in all the sieges to which Jerusalem has been
subjected, the citizens never suffered from a destitution of water,
while the besieging armies suffered severely, and were frequently
compelled to bring it from afar. For the want of it, Antiochus Pius,
and after him the Crusaders, were delayed in their attacks upon the
city, while, through all the long and horrid siege by Titus, no citizen
was known to have died of thirst, though thousands perished of hunger.
Lying in a limestone region, Jerusalem contains but few wells and
living fountains, and in its immediate vicinity but little if any
living water is found. To obviate the difficulty, it was necessary to
resort to artificial water-works to supply the demand of the Temple
service, and also of the vast population which thronged the ancient
town.
Among the public works of Solomon which he himself enumerates
are “pools of water,”[175] constructed not so much to gratify
royal ambition and adorn an already glorious reign as to meet a
real necessity, and confer a genuine benefaction upon his subjects.
Seven miles south of Jerusalem, and two miles south of Bethlehem, are
the “Pools of Solomon.” Collecting the water from one of the largest
springs in Palestine into reservoirs, he conveyed it to his capital
by means of an aqueduct, which still remains, a distance, including
the windings, of more than twelve miles. Following his example, his
successors either completed the works which he had projected, or
originated new ones as occasion demanded. With a climate unchanged,
and a soil as hard as ever, the people of the modern city depend
upon living fountains and the clouds of heaven for their supply of
water. As of old, the most delicious water is brought from a distance,
principally from the fountains in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, which
is brought into the city in goatskins carried on the back of camels
and asses. But attached to each dwelling are one or more cisterns,
excavated in the limestone rock, and measuring from fifteen to thirty
feet long, from eight to thirty broad, and from twelve to twenty
deep. The rain-water is conducted, by means of small pipes from the
flat-roofed buildings, during the rainy season, into these reservoirs,
where it remains pure and sweet for consumption during the dry months
of summer and autumn.
How beautifully this scarcity of water illustrates many passages of
the Bible, imparting to them a freshness and a reality inconceivable
by one who is a stranger to life in the East. In the nomadic life of
the patriarchs, many were the sharp quarrels and fierce fights over
a well of water. “Abraham reproved Abimelech” because the servants
of the latter had violently driven the herdmen of the former from the
well of Beersheba;[176] the King of Edom refused to allow Moses to
lead the Israelites through his dominions lest his fountains might be
exhausted;[177] the churlish Nabal enumerates water with the articles
he withheld from David;[178] anticipating the feuds that might arise
from drinking of another’s fountain, Solomon advises, “Drink water out
of thy own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well;”[179]
and, ever drawing his figures from nature and the customs of society,
and recalling the value and deliciousness of water, the Savior compares
salvation to a “well of water springing up unto everlasting life,” and
the perennial joy of piety to the happiness of one who “shall never
thirst.”[180] An Oriental can appreciate such an ineffable delight!