Hezekiah's Tunnel - Sun., 4/13/08

Some time after the twelve tribes of Israel had split into Israel in the north and Judah in the south, Hezekiah became king of Judah, which included Jerusalem. He was a good king and served God. Only 4 years into his reign, Assyria attacked and conquered Israel to the north. Knowing that his kingdom was next, Hezekiah began making preparations to protect his people and his city. At that time they had to go outside the city walls to get fresh water. It would have been very easy for Sennacherib, king of Assyria, to cut off their water supply and conquer the people without ever drawing a sword. So King Hezekiah commissioned the digging of a tunnel that diverted the water into a pool inside the city walls. Although you must ultimately give God the glory for saving the people of Jerusalem, Hezekiah's tunnel played an instrumental role in keeping the people safe from the Assyrians. You can read all about it at 2 Kings 18-20, but take note of 2 Kings 20:20-21...

As for the other events of Hezekiah's reign, all his achievements and how he made the pool and the tunnel by which he brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah? 21 Hezekiah rested with his fathers. And Manasseh his son succeeded him as king.

That tunnel is fed by the Gihon Spring and is still there today with the spring actively running. You can hike through it although at its lowest point the water comes up to your ankles and at its highest it comes to your upper thighs. Being spring water, it's cold. Unless you're within a few feet of the beginning or the end of the tunnel, there is absolutely no light. Depending on your height, you have to duck to get through about half of the tunnel. Not exactly a lot of fun? That's not what Jimmy and I thought so after seeing we would have to wait for over an hour to get on the Temple Mount, we headed to the City of David just a block away and went down into the tunnel. You really should watch the 9 minutes of video of us descending into the earth to get a feel for where we are, but here we are entering the tunnel...


Jimmy is fearlessly leading in front with the video camera set on night vision. I was behind with a small flashlight he had thought to bring on the trip.


The tunnelers carved an inscription in the tunnel telling that the tunnel was built by two teams who started at each end and met in the middle. As you go through the tunnel you can tell where the two teams met, primarily because the lines made by the carving switch directions. The lines arc to the middle. )))) / ((((


After 35 minutes we could see the light at the end of the tunnel...