Exodus 30:20 on entering the Mishkan

“Whenever they enter the Tent of Meeting, they shall wash with water so that they will not die.”

Leviticus 15 v 13

” `When a man is cleansed from his discharge, he is to count off seven days for his ceremonial cleansing; he must wash his clothes and bathe himself with fresh water, and he will be clean

Click the image to open in full size.

Click the image to open in full size.


Click the image to open in full size.

Pool of Siloam

Hezekiah, a king of Judah in the Eighth century B.C., built a tunnel through Mount Ophel in Jerusalem southward from the underground Gihon Spring through almost 1,750 feet of rock to channel water to the Pool of Siloam inside the city walls. It was to this pool that Jesus sent a blind man to have him wash his eyes in its water and receive his sight, according to John 9:7.

Until recently, only a small portion of the pool has been accessible. After the site was excavated in the late nineteenth century, the people of the village of Silwan (modern spelling of Siloam) built on the northwest corner of the little pool a mosque with a minaret, which still stands above it. However, excavations at the site in the first six months of 2005 have uncovered the eastern portion of a large pool, fifty meters in length, (its width not yet known) which lies only about ten meters south of the little pool. These two are undoubtedly a part of one larger complex that was called the Siloam Pool (like the Pool of Bethesda which had two sections). It has a series of stone steps for entering the pool, which, being fed by fresh running water from the Gihon Spring through a small channel discovered on the north side of the pool, was probably a major facility for ritual purification before entering the temple. This may be the reason Jesus chose this pool for the miracle. A stone