Pool

A pool, in the biblical record, is a contained body of standing water — sometimes a natural reservoir at a spring, sometimes a hewn cistern, sometimes a dammed and conduit-fed waterworks attached to a city. Pools serve cities under siege, kings at coronation, gardens at leisure, and the sick at the hand of a prophet or of Jesus. The named pools include those of Samaria, the Upper Pool and Lower Pool at Jerusalem, the pool of Siloam (Shelah), and the pools of Heshbon. Scripture traces those waters from chronicle into prophecy, parable, and miracle.

Pools In The Land

The Old Testament names pools as fixed landmarks. Joab and Abner meet "by the pool of Gibeon; and they sat down, the one on the one side of the pool, and the other on the other side of the pool" (2Sa 2:13), and the encounter ends in the contest of the twelve. At Samaria, the pool is the place of grim fulfillment: "And they washed the chariot by the pool of Samaria; and the dogs licked up his blood (now the whores washed themselves [there]); according to the word of Yahweh which he spoke" (1Ki 22:38). Solomon's reflection enrolls pools among the labors of an ambitious estate: "I made myself pools of water, to water therefrom the forest where trees were reared" (Ec 2:6). And the love song reaches for them as an image of clarity: "Your eyes [as] the pools in Heshbon, By the gate of Bath-rabbim" (So 7:4).

The Upper Pool And The Lower Pool

Two of Jerusalem's pools enter the record as diplomatic and military landmarks on the city's exposed northern approach. When Yahweh sends Isaiah to meet Ahaz, the appointed place is "at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, in the highway of the fuller's field" (Is 7:3). Years later the same spot receives Sennacherib's envoys: "And the king of Assyria sent Tartan and Rab-saris and Rabshakeh from Lachish to King Hezekiah with a great army to Jerusalem... And when they had come up, they came and stood by the conduit of the upper pool, which is in the highway of the fuller's field" (2Ki 18:17). Isaiah's parallel narrative records the same scene almost verbatim: "And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field" (Is 36:2). The Lower Pool surfaces in Isaiah's oracle on the besieged city's frantic preparations: "And you⁺ saw the breaches of the city of David, that they were many; and you⁺ gathered together the waters of the lower pool" (Is 22:9).

Hezekiah's Waterworks

Hezekiah's defense of Jerusalem is remembered as much for its hydraulic engineering as for its prayer. Kings condenses it into a regnal summary: "Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and all his might, and how he made the pool, and the conduit, and brought water into the city, are they not written in the Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah?" (2Ki 20:20). The Chronicler localizes the source: "This same Hezekiah also stopped the upper spring of the waters of Gihon, and brought them straight down on the west side of the city of David. And Hezekiah prospered in all his works" (2Ch 32:30). Ben Sira's later catalogue of fathers recalls the same project in praise: "Hezekiah fortified his city By bringing water into the midst of it; And he hewed the rocks with iron, And dammed up the pool with mountains" (Sir 48:17).

Gihon And The King's Pool

The Gihon spring — first named in the Eden geography as "the second river... the same is it that circles the whole land of Cush" (Ge 2:13) — is, in Israelite history, the spring that feeds the Upper Pool. It is the place chosen for Solomon's accession: "Take with you⁺ the slaves of your⁺ lord, and cause Solomon my son to ride on my own mule, and bring him down to Gihon" (1Ki 1:33). Manasseh later "built an outer wall to the city of David, on the west side of Gihon, in the valley, even to the entrance at the fish gate" (2Ch 33:14). Nehemiah, surveying the ruined defenses by night, traces the line: "Then I went on to the fountain gate and to the king's pool: but there was no place for the beast that was under me to pass" (Ne 2:14). The same fountain-gate complex reappears in the rebuilding: "And the fountain gate repaired Shallun the son of Colhozeh, the ruler of the district of Mizpah; he built it, and covered it, and set up its doors, its bolts, and its bars, and the wall of the pool of Shelah by the king's garden, even to the stairs that go down from the city of David" (Ne 3:15).

The Pool Of Siloam

Shelah, "Sent," is the Old Testament name for the pool that the Greek of John transliterates as Siloam. Nehemiah's "wall of the pool of Shelah by the king's garden" (Ne 3:15) names the same waters that Jesus later sends a blind man to wash in: "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam (which is by interpretation, Sent). He went away therefore, and washed, and came seeing" (Jn 9:7). The healed man's own report keeps the same name: "The man who is called Jesus made clay, and spread it on my eyes, and said to me, Go to Siloam, and wash: so I went away and washed, and I received sight" (Jn 9:11). Luke remembers Siloam too, but as the site of a calamity rather than a cure: "Or those eighteen, on whom the tower in Siloam fell, and killed them, do you⁺ think that they were offenders above all the men who dwell in Jerusalem?" (Lu 13:4).

Pools In Prophecy

The prophets press pools into figural service at both ends of their oracles. Against Babylon, Isaiah promises desolation: "I will also make it a possession for the porcupine, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, says Yahweh of hosts" (Is 14:23). And in the picture of the wilderness restored, the pool is the sign that the curse has been reversed: "And the glowing sand will become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water: in the habitation of the jackals' resting place, will be grass with reeds and rushes" (Is 35:7). Pools, in Scripture, mark the cities that men build, the sieges they survive, the gardens they plant, and the deserts that — in the prophetic word — will one day be remade.