HEZEKIAH’S TUNNEL AND THE SILOAM INSCRIPTION

We read about Hezekiah’s tunnel in the weekly last Lord’s Day. This 1700-feet water
tunnel was constructed by King Hezekiah and his men out of solid rock in the eight century
B.C. when Jerusalem came under attack by King Sennacherib of Assyria. The record of
this building project is found in 2 Chronicles 32:2-4 and 2 Kings 20:20.

“And when Hezekiah saw that Sennacherib was come, and that he was purposed to fight
against Jerusalem, He took counsel with his princes and his mighty men to stop the waters
of the fountains which were without the city: and they did help him. So there was gathered
much people together, who stopped all the fountains, and the brook that ran through the
midst of the land, saying, Why should the kings of Assyria come, and find much water?” (2
Chr. 32:2-4)

“And the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and all his might, and how he made a pool, and a
conduit, and brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the chronicles
of the kings of Judah?” (2 Ki. 20:20)

An additional detail of the tunnel project is given in 2 Chronicles 32:20 where it is stated
that Hezekiah, “stopped the upper watercourse of Gihon, and brought it straight down to
the west side of the city of David.”

Based on Biblical records, we see that the purpose of the tunnel was to ensure that
Jerusalem had a steady supply of water during the attack by King Sennacherib. The water
seemed to prove particularly profitable in building up the western part of the city of David.
The Hezekiah tunnel as we know it today, was discovered in 1867 by the British explorer
Sir Charles Warren. The description of the tunnel fits the biblical account as it connected
the Gihon spring, which is the fresh water source for Jerusalem, to the Siloam Pool at the
west side of the city. The identification of the tunnel was further aided by the discovery of
the Siloam inscription close to the Southern entrance in 1880. As this area was under the
control of the Ottoman empire, the inscription was removed and taken to Turkey. It is still
kept in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum today.

An English translation of the Siloam transcription is as follows:
“(1) [. . .] the tunneling. And this is the narrative of the tunneling: While [the stone-cutters
were wielding]
(2) the picks, each toward his co-worker,the picks, each toward his coworker, and while
there were still three cubits to tunnel through, the voice of a man was heard calling out
(3) to his co-worker, because there was a fissure in the rock, running from south [to north].
And on the (final) day of
(4) tunneling, each of the stonecutters was striking (the stone) forcefully so as to meet his
co-worker, pick after pick. And
(5) then the water began to flow from the source to the pool, a distance of 1200 cubits. And
100
(6) cubits was the height of the rock above the head of the stone-cutters.” (Translation by
Rollston)

The Siloam inscription records something most astounding in the building process of the
tunnel. Workers began tunnelling through the solid rock from both ends until they met
(incredibly and by divine providence) in the middle of the tunnel. In fact, the tunnel
meanders for about 500 m connecting Gihon in the northeast with the pool of Siloam in
the southwest. Throughout the meandering tunnel, the drop in gradient is only about 30
cm, which is the height of a common measuring rule today.

Hezekiah’s Tunnel is a testimony of God’s goodness and mercy to His people, especial-
ly if they seek Him with all their heart. The military might of Sennacherib may appear
far greater than Hezekiah, but Hezekiah had the Almighty God on His side. It is the Lord
who gave Hezekiah and his men the wisdom to construct the tunnel. The fact that they
could meet providentially in the middle while starting work from two separate ends is
clearly by the hand of God. We who travel in the Holy Land through this tunnel must
not fail to see the workings of God, otherwise these archaeological findings will be
nothing more than dead stones to us.

The Scripture teaches us emphatically that the deliverance of Israel was not due to the
ingenuity of Hezekiah and his men, but by the power of God, “And the LORD sent an
angel, which cut off all the mighty men of valour, and the leaders and captains in the
camp of the king of Assyria. So he returned with shame of face to his own land. And
when he was come into the house of his god, they that came forth of his own bowels slew
him there with the sword.” (2 Chr. 32:21)

Are you on the Lord’s side? If that is the case, nothing can stop you from fulfilling the
will of God. He will protect you to the end.

Yours affectionately,
Pastor Clement Chew

TruthGPT?

It was reported on Reuters (and republished by ChannelNewsAsia) on 18 April 2023 that
Elon Musk is planning to start a “TruthGPT” AI platform. Musk proclaimed, “I’m going
to start something which I call ‘TruthGPT,’ or a maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to
understand the nature of the universe… And I think this might be the best path to safety,
in the sense that an AI that cares about understanding the universe, it is unlikely to
annihilate humans because we are an interesting part of the universe.”

As Christians, we respond that God’s Word is truth (John 17:17). If only Musk were to
submit to the teachings of Scripture, there would be no need of TruthGPT. All
TruthGPT would do is to promote devious falsehood to the entire world. Musk thinks
that TruthGPT would be less dangerous than the version currently being developed by
OpenAI. Nothing can be further from the truth (pun intended). It will ruin the souls of
men.

William Lyon Phelps was right to note that, “a knowledge of the Bible without a college
course is more valuable than a college course without a Bible.” How foolish it is for the
smartest of men to think that AI can help us to discover the truth. “Professing themselves
to be wise, they became fools”. (Rom. 1:22)

Yours affectionately,
Pastor Clement Chew