Hezekah's Tunnel and the Beach

For Paul's last day here, I took him to the City of David National Park.  After watching the 3-D historical movie and walking through some of the site (see earlier posts here, here, and here, we went to our main objective, Hezekiah's Tunnel.

The actual Pool of Siloam (Shiloach in Hebrew) is not the small Byzantine pool that Hezekiah's Tunnel now empties into but rather a large, Second Temple structure now largely buried in archaeological overburden.

The Pool of Siloam, at the bottom of the painting above, originally had a processional way that led up the valley beside the City of David up to the Temple Mount.  Today the route can be retraced through a tunnel that is actually the remnant of a Herodian Drain under this street.

The drain tunnel opens up below the Temple Mount

The now-blocked triple gate was the entrance to the Second Temple

These first century steps would have been walked on by Jesus and his disciples

Elaine and picked us up by Zion's Gate.  We then drove to the Mediterranean coast for some R&R at Palmachim Beach.

 

And that was the effective end of our friends' visit.  They dropped me off at the airport to meet my last group of students, and then Elaine took them to East Jerusalem to do some final shopping.  Tonight she takes them to the airport late because I must get back to the grind first thing in the morning.