Page:Buried cities and Bible countries (1891).djvu/300

 living at Beth Millo, David's house, and when he heard of the conspiracy he designed to flee down the stairs and through the Gate between two walls; but being a sick man he was being carried on a litter, as Lewin remarks, and while going down Silla,—not while going down to Silla, for there is no preposition here in the Hebrew text—the assassins killed him.

The Wall destroyed by Jehoash, king of Israel, when he came against Amaziah of Judah, extended from the Gate of Ephraim unto the Corner Gate, 400 cubits (2 Kings xiv. 13; 2 Chron. xxv. 23). We can now, by aid of Herr Schick's plan of the second wall, and our previous study of Nehemiah, see exactly this piece of wall, south of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and running east and west.

The Towers built by Uzziah were intended to strengthen the city just in this part where it had been found to be vulnerable. He "built towers in Jerusalem at the Corner Gate, at the Valley Gate, and at the turning of the wall, and fortified them" (2 Chron. xxvi. 9). The "turning" here spoken of is a re-entering angle, and not improbably that one south-east of the Church of the Sepulchre, where we find the "Throne of the Governor" in later time.

In the days of Ahaz, the grandson of Uzziah, Jerusalem was threatened by the allied forces of Rezin, king of Syria and Pekah, king of Israel. Ahaz and his people were greatly perturbed, and needed a message of advice and encouragement The word of the Lord came to Isaiah, in the Temple, saying, "Go forth now and meet Ahaz, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool, in the highway of the Fuller's Field" (Isaiah vii. 3). The upper pool here spoken of is believed to be the Virgin's Fountain, where we find one end of a conduit which connects it with the lower pool at Siloam. But if this is what is meant, why is the spot not described shortly and plainly as En-Rogel, by which name it was already known? (1 Kings i. 9).