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How Did the Ancient Israelites Get Their Water? Tony Benson

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How Did the Ancient Israelites Get Their Water? Tony Benson The Testimony, March 2006 85 How did the ancient Israelites get their water? Tony Benson OST READERS of this magazine have This spring is referred to in 1 Kings 1:33 as the ready access to unlimited supplies of place where Solomon was crowned king, and is Mwater, accessible at any time by the turn- well known as the source of water channelled ing of a tap. But what did the Israelites of Bible through the tunnel, about a third of a mile times do for water? Few lived near to a river long, constructed by Hezekiah, as referred to or lake that supplied water all the year round. in 2 Chronicles 32: “This same Hezekiah also For those living in the hills, in particular, other stopped the upper watercourse of Gihon, and means of obtaining water had to be found, and brought it straight down to the west side of the the ancient Israelites were experts at utilising vari- city of David” (v. 30). ous methods to ensure an adequate year-round It is typical of limestone hills, such as those supply of water. We will have a look at the five making up much of the central spine of Israel, main methods of obtaining water. that water tends to flow underground, with little in the way of surface flow. This meant that the Springs ancient Israelites, and their Canaanite predeces- There are very few naturally flowing springs in sors, had to dig down to find flowing water the Judean hills, the most famous being the Gihon at underground springs. A number of ancient Spring in Jerusalem’s Kidron Valley. This has a shafts and tunnels have been discovered dur- flow of fifty cubic metres an hour, estimated at ing excavations of ancient cities, the most well being sufficient to provide enough water for the known being at Hazor and Megiddo, both readily drinking and cooking needs of 120,000 people. visited. PICTURE: TONY BENSON TONY PICTURE: Modern steps at Megiddo, leading down to a tunnel through which water was brought into the city from a spring outside the walls. This water system dates back to the time of Solomon. 86 The Testimony, March 2006 Wells A well can be a vertical shaft dug down to the level of the water table so that the bottom of the well fills up with water seeping in, or it can be a vertical shaft dug down to reach the flowing water of an underground stream. Wells are usually dug in plains and valleys rather than through solid rock. However, a well has been discovered in the Kidron Valley south of Jerusalem, dug to a depth of 125 feet through solid limestone. This is considered to be the place referred to in the Bible as En-rogel (see panel below). A typical area for digging wells BENSON TONY PICTURE: was the Negev (south), where Ab- Ancient well excavated at Tell es-Seba, ancient Beer-sheba. raham and Isaac spent much of their time. The is usually translated ‘pit’ or ‘cistern’. The most importance of wells in this dry area is shown in common word for ‘well’ is beer (as in Beer-sheba, the disputes between Abraham, Isaac and their meaning ‘Well of the oath’), and the other is ayin. servants on the one hand and the Philistine King They seem to be used interchangeably, notably in Abimelech and his servants on the other (Gen. Genesis 24, and seem to be capable of applying 21:25-31; 26:15-25). to both still and running water. There are many occurrences of the word ‘well’ in the AV translation of the Old Testament. These Cisterns represent four different Hebrew words (plus one Cisterns that collected the rain were a common occurring just once). However, the translation way of securing water supplies in the limestone ‘well’ is not always accurate. The Hebrew mayan, hills of the land of Israel. The Hebrew word for translated ‘well’ five times, is usually translated cistern is bor, which occurs sixty-six times, and is ‘fountain’, and bor, translated ‘well’ nine times, variously translated ‘cistern’, ‘dungeon’, ‘pit’ and En-rogel A place called En-rogel is mentioned four times in the Bible. It occurs twice in Joshua in con- nection with the boundary between Judah and Benjamin (15:7; 18:16). In 2 Samuel 17:17 it is referred to as the place where Jonathan and Ahimaaz lodged in order to receive information as to what was going on in Jerusalem during Absalom’s rebellion. In 1 Kings 1:9 it is mentioned as the place where an attempt was made to crown Adonijah king instead of Solomon. The place was situated where the Kidron Valley joins the Hinnom Valley south of Jerusalem. The En part of the name indicates a spring, but all there is now is an ancient well (see main text). There are two theories as to what might have happened to the spring that was presum- ably here originally. The first is that the topography was altered by the great earthquake that occurred in the time of King Uzziah (Amos 1:1; Zech 14:5). The second is based on the fact that, in limestone country, streams come to the surface, then disappear, then reappear further down a valley. The spring of En-rogel was where water from the Gihon Spring re-emerged after flowing down the Kidron Valley for a short way, then disappearing. From Solomon’s time onwards the water from the Gihon Spring was diverted into artificial channels for drinking water and irrigation, leaving insufficient water to emerge at En-rogel. It is noteworthy that En-rogel is not mentioned after 1 Kings 1. At a later time, local people, knowing that water once emerged there, sunk a shaft down until they found it. The Testimony, March 2006 87 The Hebrew word bor is used in Genesis 37 for the “pit” into which Joseph was put, which we are told “was empty; there was no water in it”. It was evi- dently a cistern, with the water having been used up during the summer months, or else having seeped away through cracks. Bor is also used in Jeremiah 38 of the “dungeon” into which Jeremiah was put, evidently a cistern from which the water had gone, leav- ing only mud behind. Reservoirs Another method of collecting PICTURE: © RITMEYER ARCHAEOLOGICAL DESIGN ARCHAEOLOGICAL PICTURE: © RITMEYER water was by damming wadies Reconstruction drawing of the Pool of Bethesda, in fact two (streams flowing only in the rainy pools divided by a portico. The four porticoes round the season) in order to collect the outside and the central one are thought to make up the “five water in reservoirs. The Hebrew porches” of John 5:2 word for this is berekah, translated ‘well’. Not all these occurrences refer to cisterns, ‘pool’. There are references to pools in the cities but most do. of Gibeon, Hebron and Samaria (2 Sam. 2:13; 4:12; Cisterns had a narrow opening and broadened 1 Kgs. 22:38). The Preacher in Ecclesiastes refers to out below, thus limiting the exposure of the the fact that he had made “pools of water, to wa- collected water to evaporation. They were con- ter therewith the wood that bringeth forth trees” structed to collect the winter rainfall running off (2:13), evidently reservoirs used for irrigation. In slopes, which would provide sufficient water for New Testament times there were about fifteen the six months without rain, running from April pools in and around Jerusalem, including the Pool to October. Individual houses would have their of Bethesda where Jesus healed a paralysed man, own cisterns, as referred to by the Rabshakeh in as recorded in John 5. 2 Kings 18:31: “eat ye every Reconstructed dam at the site of the ancient Nabatean city of man of his own vine, and Mamshit. It was built to catch the winter rains for storage in a covered every one of his fig tree, reservoir or for transference by jars to cisterns under houses. and drink ye every one the waters of his cistern”. The Israelites relied heav- ily on cisterns, as they initially occupied mainly the hill country. Because cisterns cut in the limestone rock tend to develop cracks, they developed a method of plastering the walls of their cisterns to prevent the stored water seeping away. Besides the Gihon Spring as a source of water, New Testament Jerusalem had many cisterns, with a com- plex system of drains and runoffs to collect as much water as possible. BENSON TONY PICTURE: 88 The Testimony, March 2006 Aqueducts We think of an aqueduct as being an elevated water channel, as famously built by the Romans Proverbs 5:15,16 in many places, or as being a bridge carrying a This passage mentions, in a figurative canal. However, it can mean any artificial chan- context, several ways of obtaining water nel for carrying water from one place to another. supplies: Such a channel is referred to in Isaiah 7:3, “the conduit of the upper pool”, and in 8:6, “the waters “Drink waters out of thine own cistern, of Shiloah that go softly”. This is not the tunnel and running waters out of thine own built by Hezekiah to channel the waters of the well. Gihon Spring, for the conduit is mentioned in con- Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, nection with the reign of Ahaz, Hezekiah’s father and rivers of waters in the streets”. and predecessor. The reference seems to be to a “Well” here evidently refers to one which channel constructed earlier to direct the waters of goes down to an underground stream, the Gihon Spring along the western edge of the rather than just to the water table.
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