HEZEKIAH’S TUNNEL
Descent into Hezekiah’s Tunnel - Photo: David Kiern
“Wet or dry?”
These were the two options presented to me.
“Beside the obvious,” I asked our tour guide, “what’s the difference?”
“The wet tunnel is longer, and you’ll be up to your knees in water for most of the journey.”
“How about the dry option?”
“No water. Very short.”
I hadn’t travelled all the way to Israel for the short, sanitized experience. I wanted the full-strength variety. “Wet, please.”
My first descent in 2017
The City of David
The lower city, south of the Temple Mount, the original walls of Jerusalem. - Photo: David Kiern
About 2,700 years ago, righteous King Hezekiah learned that the Assyrian army was soon to invade Judah and her capital Jerusalem. Historically, sieges would surround a city, attempting to starve her inhabitants, forcing their inevitable surrender. Hezekiah set to work preparing Jerusalem for the onslaught. One brilliant move he made was to carve a tunnel starting from the city’s primary water source, The Gihon Spring, located just outside the walls of the City of David, all the way to The Pool of Siloam, 1,749 feet southwest, well inside the city walls. Jerusalem would maintain its gushing water supply and it continues to gush to this very day!
Water from the Gihon Spring, from the Hebrew word meaning ‘to burst forth.’ - Photo: David Kiern
The story of Hezekiah and the Assyrian invasion continues and concludes in dramatic fashion with God stepping in as the ultimate Deliverer, slaying 185,000 Assyrian soldiers overnight with a plague! Hezekiah’s brilliant two-year excavation project surely provided the inhabitants of Jerusalem a sense of peace despite the circumstances, knowing that living water would continue to flow. But, God alone was their salvation!
(See 2 Kings 18-19 and 2 Chron 32:2-4)
Traversing through the entire tunnel is a must-do adventure for any visitor to the Land, and was an absolute highlight for my 10-year old son, Nicky!
Can you imagine it? The sound of laughter echoes in the air as you wade through the cool, calm water with friends old and new. The darkness is punctuated by cellphone light reflecting off the yellowish-brown rock walls. The rippling and lapping of the water provides the only instrumentation for the inevitable singing that breaks out. Occasionally, you might turn off your flashlights (if everyone agrees) and walk in utter darkness, but I promise, it only lasts for a few brave seconds.
My son Nicky and I adventuring with our new friends Jeff and Fawn in Hezekiah’s Tunnel!
But, while one hand holds my phone for light, my other hand glides along on the surface of the wall beside me. I run my fingers over millions of grooves, scooped out of the stone, made by a rudimentary chisel, carved almost three millennia ago by an ordinary man who saw Solomon’s Temple on a daily basis! A man who worshipped the God of his ancestors: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob!
“Maybe he was from the tribe of Judah...” I wonder as I walk. “…or Benjamin.” Either way, I hope to meet him in the Kingdom to come, so I can compliment his handiwork!
For two whole years, these men from Jerusalem chiseled and dug from two different directions with the plan to meet in the middle. The meeting point is obvious, not only because the ceiling doubles in height for a stretch (they misjudged the elevation by a few yards, then made adjustments leading to the high ceiling), but also because the chisel marks suddenly change direction! They no longer fall away from view as one would expect, but now they begin to fall toward me!
What a day of rejoicing that must have been!!!
Exiting the tunnel unscathed with Nicky in 2019.
There is another rejoicing taking place between two related people-groups who seem to be meeting in the middle…
As a Gentile follower of Jesus (a Christian), I have been digging a tunnel all my life, so to speak: studying the Word and learning to walk in His ways to the best of my ability.
Then recently, I feel like my tunnel was met by another group digging from a different starting point! It didn’t take long to realize these people were also my brothers: Jewish followers of Yeshua! (Jesus in Hebrew!)
I’ve been hearing news of what God has been doing in and through these brothers and sisters as they ‘dug their side of the tunnel’, from a perspective I’d never considered.
And great is our rejoicing as we meet in the middle!
Jerusalem from the South - Photo: David Kiern
