Through Hezekiah's Tunnel

We spent much of this beautiful day (breezy, 82 F.) in the oldest part of Jerusalem, the so-called "City of David." It's south of the rest of the Old City, down in a low valley. David lived there throughout his reign. Of course, old Jerusalem can never be separated from current realities. The City of David is right across the street from the jammed, cliffside Palestinian village of Silwan, a flash point in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Our teacher told a story of a recent Jerusalem University College student who, on his first day of class, decided to go running through Silwan's twisty streets. But people started throwing rocks at him as he ran by. The rocks got bigger. He soon figured out that he had better get out of there if he didn't want to be--literally--stoned.

The outstanding archeological feature in this part of town is a water supply tunnel built by King Hezekiah in the 8th century B.C. It's an engineering marvel and no one is quite sure how they pulled it off. The problem was simple: the city's water supply was vulnerable to attack and needed to be protected. A two-stage solution was arrived at. Stage one: build a small fort extending from the city wall, surrounding the spring. Stage two: redirect the water flow by carving an underground tunnel out of bedrock so water could be collected inside the city.

The tunnel, a twisty, turny, narrow-walled affair, still exists today and we waded through it late this morning. It takes about 20 minutes to go from one end to the other. The fast-flowing water is chilly and deep enough in one place to cover the bottom of your shorts. You take a flash light and follow the person behind you. There are places where you have to duck because the tunnel, in addition to being just 2 1/2 feet wide, is only about 5 feet high in many places. Great fun and you think to yourself, "How did they carve this with nothing more than chisels and candles? And how much work was it to haul out all the debris, probably in a sack on your back?" It eventually leads to the Pool of Siloam, where Jesus healed a blind man (you can read about it in John 9).

Just a word about the other people in our class: there are about 40 of us, mostly from the U.S. Two Christian colleges--Simpson College in Redding, CA and Columbia International University in South Carolina--brought good-sized groups. There are also parents with college-aged kids and several college faculty. I must confess that we are among the oldest people in attendance, but it's not a detriment at all. We keep up fine and everyone has a good time.

Tomorrow promises to be interesting. It's our first foray outside of Jerusalem into the surrounding countryside. Unlike the first few days when we literally walked for hours through the Old City, tomorrow we'll be on a tour bus.