The Siloam Tunnel Inscription: For the Living or the Dead?

ERICH LESSING / ART RESOURCE, NY

Jerusalem’s Siloam Tunnel Inscription is traditionally interpreted as a commemorative text celebrating the completion of the project.^a However, placing an inscription inside a dark tunnel, where nobody could read it, just makes no sense! Let me propose a better interpretation.

The City of David’s main water source was the Gihon Spring, located outside the eastern city wall near the floor of the Kidron Valley. To bring its water to the Siloam Pool at the other side of the city, the king of Judah (most likely Hezekiah) had a 1,750-foot-long tunnel dug through the rocky hill in the late eighth century BCE. Two groups of tunnelers worked simultaneously from both ends, until they finally met. A remarkable Hebrew inscription was incised into the tunnel wall about 20 feet from the southern exit.

The inscription is not a simple graffito; it took considerable time, skill, and effort to produce, yet it was completely hidden from sight. Its text is fairly clear, and here is what the main part says (restored sections in brackets):

While [the stonecutters were swinging] the axe one towards the other, and while there were still three cubits to be cut th[rough, there was hear]d the sound of one calling to the other, for there was a zdh in the rock on the right and on the [le]ft.

And on the day of the cutting-through, the stonecutters were hewing each towards the other, axe upon [a]xe. And the water flowed from the outlet to the pool for one thousand [and t]wo hundred cubits. And one hu[nd]red cubits was the height of the rock over the heads of the stonecutter[s].

The common interpretation is that the text refers to the dramatic moment when the two groups of stonecutters heard each other for the first time and realized they were about to meet, thereby completing the project successfully. But this interpretation has no support in the text, which describes no such event. What it actually says is that, as the groups were working toward one another and getting close to finishing, suddenly someone cried out because of a zdh (more on this word later) in the rock. This raises several questions.

First, we would expect a commemorative inscription to be placed at the meeting place itself. However, that place, which can be identified by a series of zigzag cutting marks made as the miners groped their way toward each other, is far from the location of the inscription.

Second, the inscription describes a distance of about 5 feet between the groups. However, scientific studies have shown that, in this type of rock, hearing distance is substantially longer. This means that the event described is very likely not the first time they heard each other.

Third and perhaps most problematic, the common interpretation fails to address the main puzzle: An inscription publicly commemorating such an important event should have been placed in a prominent public place, not hidden inside the tunnel where nobody could see it.

Let us first try to identify the inscription’s authors, for whom there are these clues: (1) a vivid, firsthand experience of the events, and (2) close attention to technical details, such as working tools and measurements. Therefore, there is broad consensus that the inscription was authored by the stonecutters themselves.

The question of audience is more complicated, as there are no clear clues in the text. The solution may come from an unexpected source: linguistic research on dialogue. Studies have shown that the content of the speaker’s contributions reflects their beliefs about what the addressee already knows or wishes to know. Applying these results to the inscription, we must conclude that the audience already knows the background about the tunnel project and doesn’t need to be told who commissioned it, for what purpose, or when it was carried out. Also, the inscription clearly aims to tell the audience how the project was concluded, including the technical details.

Therefore, we seek to identify an audience who: (1) knew the background of the project; (2) wanted to know how it ended; (3) but didn’t; and (4) was able to read an inscription hidden in a dark and inaccessible place. What kind of audience could satisfy all four criteria? I propose the audience was one or more of the workers who didn’t manage to see the end of the project, because they were killed in an accident before it was completed.

In Iron Age Judah, secondary burial was a common practice, in which the remains of the deceased were first placed in a temporary tomb, to be moved later to a permanent resting place.¹ In many cultures—ancient and modern—where secondary burial is practiced, the dead remain in the temporary tomb for up to several years. During this time, the dead are believed to roam the places where they used to live and work; they are in a sad and dismal state and need comforting. As such, the authors of the Siloam Tunnel Inscription may have hoped that the dead workers who roamed the tunnel would read the inscription and be comforted by its message.

What sort of accident could have killed these workers? Most researchers agree that, before they started digging, the workers would have had to block the flow from the Gihon Spring to keep it from flooding the tunnel. If this blockage collapsed prematurely, the water would rage into the tunnel and endanger the lives of the workers.

Does the inscription contain any reference to such an event? One clue may be the mysterious word zdh. It is often interpreted as a fissure in the rock, which enabled the groups to hear each other. But there is no linguistic evidence for this, and no such fissure has been found.

The word zdh does not occur in the Hebrew Bible, but its probable root (z-w-d/z-y-d) appears several times. This root literally refers to a liquid that is overflowing. It is metaphorically extended to the sense of breaking boundaries, that is, doing evil deeds. Interestingly, in Psalm 124:4–5, this root applies to water, where both literal and metaphorical interpretations are appropriate: “The water overwhelmed us … the overflowing/evil water went over our souls.” It seems likely, therefore, that zdh in the inscription refers to a sudden and disastrous overflow of water, which fits perfectly with the accident proposed here.

With all this in mind, the text is addressed to one or more workers who died in an accident while digging the tunnel. The inscription tells them that the sound they had heard just before they died was their comrades crying out a warning about the incoming water. Nevertheless, their death was not in vain, as the work was completed successfully.

The Siloam Tunnel Inscription was not meant to commemorate the construction of the tunnel. It was an act of kindness, performed by a group of common people who wanted to offer some consolation to their tragically deceased friends.