The Pool of Siloam

The Discovery

In the summer of 2004, workers repairing a sewage pipe in the old City of David neighborhood of Jerusalem accidentally exposed a set of ancient stone steps. Archaeologists Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron were called to the site, and what they uncovered stunned the scholarly world: a large, stepped pool dating to the late Second Temple period — the first century BC to first century AD. Coins found in the plaster confirmed the dating. This was the Pool of Siloam, the very pool mentioned in the Gospel of John.

The pool was far larger than the small Byzantine-era pool that pilgrims had visited for centuries, mistaking it for the original. The true pool measured roughly 225 feet long and featured broad steps on at least three sides, designed for ritual immersion. It sat at the southern end of the Tyropoeon Valley, fed by the waters channeled through Hezekiah's Tunnel from the Gihon Spring.

Biblical Connection

Read John 9:1-7. Jesus encounters a man blind from birth, makes mud with his saliva, anoints the man's eyes, and tells him: "Go, wash in the pool of Siloam." The man goes, washes, and comes back seeing. John adds a detail that reveals his care as a narrator: the name Siloam means "Sent."

This is no incidental geographic note. John is making a theological point: the man was sent to the pool called "Sent," by the One who was Himself sent by the Father. The physical act of washing in a real pool becomes a sign of the spiritual reality — that Jesus is the light of the world who opens the eyes of the blind.

Isaiah 35:5 had prophesied: "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped." At the Pool of Siloam, the ancient prophecy took flesh.

Why It Matters

For decades, some scholars questioned whether the Pool of Siloam even existed, or whether John had invented a symbolic location. The 2004 discovery put those doubts to rest. The pool was real, it was exactly where John's narrative placed it, and it was in active use during the lifetime of Jesus.

"We have found the Pool of Siloam, exactly where the Gospel of John said it was." — Ronny Reich, Excavating the City of David

This matters because the Gospel of John weaves together history and theology so tightly that they cannot be separated. The miracle did not happen in a mythical landscape. It happened at a specific pool, at the bottom of a specific valley, in the city of Jerusalem. When we read John's Gospel, we are reading an account rooted in places you can still visit, steps you can still walk down, and water that still flows from the same ancient spring.