Once in Royal David's City

Our next day begins with a trip to the city of David. It starts with a forgettable 3D movie. I remember nothing about it except my glasses did not fit as usual and that Jack got a big laugh by suggesting that the adventurer of the movie looked like Dr. V.

At this point I was facing my major fear of the trip. For weeks I had been worried about going through Hezekiah's tunnel. Remember the issue of water in Israel. It was scarce. In 2 Kings 18 and 2 Chronicles 32 Hezekiah is fearing an attack by the Assyrians and so he takes drastic measures to outlast them by protecting his water supply. He orders a hidden tunnel to be carved in the stone to bring the water from the Gihon Springs safely into the city. two teams started on opposite ends and carved this tunnel until it met in the middle. The picture that I saw of the tunnel made me worried that I would not fit but I wanted to walk through it so I did. I am pretty sure that Brooke and Mike knew I was worried and so they planned for me to walk in between them. You jump in on one end where the water is about knee deep. I was nervous and short of breath as we began to walk. We kept a quick pace and trudged against the water flow. At times the tunnel dropped under five feet and my shoulders bounced back and forth between the walls the entire way. I scratched my head which had the unfortunate consequence of me realizing just how bald I am when I took a picture of my head to see the cut. (Maybe I will include that picture maybe I won't). I think that tall skinny guys started on one side and short kind of skinny guys started on the other as at the end of the tunnel the ceiling rose to probably fifteen feet.

The tunnel ends at the Pools of Siloam where Jesus heals a man in John 9. Half of the pool is excavated and the other half is not because the church that owns the land will not sell it to the government to be dug up. This is bad. It is also really good because it demonstrates how a ruined site would look prior to being dug up. One side looks like a swimming pool. In the middle of the swimming pool is a wall of dirt and grass unexcavated.

Next to these pools were stairs that were currently being excavated. These stairs probably traveled all the way from the city of David to the southern steps of the Temple Mount.

While awaiting to go into the tunnel we entered a working excavation site that looked out over the City of David. It might have been a stronghold of David as in 2 Samuel 5. This would have been a potential place for David to look out over the city and spy Bathsheeba bathing.

Dr. V says that 1 Samuel 8 the people want a king to help them fight in their battles. In 2 Samuel 11 the Israelites go to battle and David stays back...derelict of duty. He gets into trouble in idle time by viewing Bathsheeba. We are challenged- what do we do with our free time? He challenges us to work hard. It is a good challenge