Siloam, Pool of

The Pool of Siloam (Hebrew Shiloah, Greek Siloam, meaning sent) was the reservoir at the southern end of Hezekiah's tunnel in Jerusalem, fed by the Gihon Spring through the 533-meter rock-cut conduit that Hezekiah constructed to secure Jerusalem's water supply before the Assyrian siege (2 Kings 20:20; 2 Chronicles 32:30; Isaiah 22:9). The Siloam Inscription discovered in 1880 commemorates the completion of this tunnel by workmen cutting from both ends.

The pool's greatest New Testament significance is as the site of the healing of the man born blind (John 9:1–11). Jesus mixed mud with saliva, applied it to the man's eyes, and commanded him: Go, wash in the pool of Siloam. He went, washed, and received his sight — prompting an extended controversy with the Pharisees over whether the healing was lawful on the Sabbath. Archaeological excavations since 2004 have uncovered a large first-century stepped pool at the southern end of the City of David, widely identified as the Pool of Siloam.