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For October-December 2003
Volume 6 Number 4 (continued)
Locating the Fountain Gate
In this fourth and final installment Bill Lavers concludes his Locating Jerusalem's Fountain Gate series.
[ Part I The Secret Visit ] [ See Part II The Inspection ]
[ PART III The Steps to the Gihon ]
PART IV The Angle
Returning to the repair and rebuilding of the wall, we come to the section that extended from �the stairs that go down from the city of David� which marked the limit of Shallun�s responsibility, to a point opposite the ascent to the armoury at the angle, or turning of the wall. This particular section of the wall occupied the attention of the next four working parties, each of which is respectively described in the next four verses of Nehemiah 3, from verse 16 to verse 19.
The important thing to observe here is that there is no change mentioned in the level of that eastern wall. It appears to have continued along on the same northerly course and at the same general height above the Kidron Valley. Only at the end of verse 19 do we find it turning and beginning to ascend. When we consider this in relation to what we are told in Nehemiah 12:37, then the length of wall we are concerned with here must have been relatively short, a fact which would also lead us to infer that it could well have suffered an exceptional amount of damage.
Here is what verse 37 tells us: �At the Fountain gate and straight before them, they went up by the stairs of the city of David, at the going up of the wall above the house of David, even as far as the Water Gate eastward.� Were it not for those four verses in Nehemiah 3, we would naturally be led to believe that the ascent of the stairs referred to in Nehemiah 12:37 was simply an upward continuation of those which are said in Nehemiah 3:15 to have gone down from the city of David. Yet Ezra�s party went straight before them from the Fountain Gate, and then went up the stairs. The section of wall described in verses 16 to19 must therefore have lain between the Fountain Gate and the ascent of the stairs.
Before we spend time taking a detailed look at what those four verses are telling us, we need to consider what Nehemiah meant in 12:37 when he spoke of �the going up of the wall above the house of David.� That simple statement has led to a great deal of controversy among biblical scholars because they are not inclined to accept what the words are telling them � that David could well have had a house on the terrace, at the northern end of which both the wall and the steps began to ascend. They rose to such a height that they would have overlooked not only David�s house, but his garden � the King�s Garden that we have already discussed�as well as the Tabernacle, the Pool of Siloah, and the Fountain Gate.
There are two definite indications given in the scriptural record showing that David had a house on that particular terrace. Both are found in II Samuel, the first in chapter 6 and the second in chapter 7. In chapter 6, beginning with verse 12, we have the account of how David brought the ark of God into the city of David from the house of Obed-edom at Gibeah. It is said that David, girded with a linen ephod, danced before the Lord as he led those who bore the ark and the joyous procession of the people who accompanied them. When they finally reached the terrace above the Gihon, however, we are told that: �Michal, Saul�s daughter (who was David�s wife) looked through a window, and saw king David leaping and dancing before the Lord: and she despised him in her heart.� Michal, watching the events from the window of David�s house, clearly saw everything that took place. That means David�s house had to have been reasonably close by.
In the following chapter, we find the king sitting in his house on some later occasion speaking with the prophet Nathan and saying to him: �See now, I dwell in an house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells within curtains.� Look, David was saying to Nathan, from the comfort of his own home, there is the Tabernacle, and within its curtains dwells the ark of the Covenant; yet here am I dwelling in a house of cedar. Nathan, knowing what was in David�s heart, but at the same time, seemingly acting on his own initiative, said to the king, �Go, do all that is in thine heart; for the Lord is with thee.�
These two sections of scripture alone illustrate the obvious proximity of David�s house to the Tabernacle. Although it was built some little time before the Ark was brought into the city, David would no doubt have prepared the site for the Tabernacle and that for his own house at the same time, carefully selecting the site where each was to be raised up. Prior to that, in fact from the time he had first won control of the Jebusite citadel and had successfully ousted the Jebusites from their almost impregnable position on that south-east ridge, David had dwelt in that strong commanding fortress, making it his official palace. It henceforth became his seat of government and regency over the twelve tribes of Israel.
For the first seven and one half years following his anointing as king, David had reigned at Hebron, but only over the tribe of Judah. Not until the end of that period did the elders of Israel submit themselves to his authority and anoint him king over the twelve tribes. Together they then took Jerusalem, and David reigned there over the whole of Israel for the next thirty three years. He was thirty-seven years of age when he began to reign in Jerusalem, but it was to be a further six years before he brought up the Ark from Gibeah.
From the time he took the Jebusite city and established it as the capital of the nation of Israel, II Samuel 5:10 says that David�s affairs prospered: he �went on and grew great, and the Lord God of hosts was with him.� Or, as Josephus expressed it: his affairs did more and more prosper by the providence of God, who took care that they should improve and be augmented (Ant.7.3.2).
David�s rapid rise to power quickly attracted the attention of Hiram, king of Tyre, who sent an embassy to David, probably with the intention of forming an alliance with this new powerful monarch whose territory now bordered upon his own. That alliance was to lead not only to the steady growth of trade and commerce between the two nations, but to the establishment of a strong bond of friendship between the two rulers themselves, which was to last throughout the remainder of David�s reign and on into that of his son Solomon.
David availed himself of their alliance to ask Hiram for both wood and artisans to construct a palatial residence, with the result that Hiram sent numerous cedars together with carpenters and stonemasons, �and they built him a house� (verse 11). The fact that the scriptures speak primarily of this particular house, does not mean of course that David did not construct others. I Chronicles 15:1 clearly shows that he built a number of residences in the city of David.
II Samuel 5:13-16 tells us that David took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem after he came from Hebron, and that more sons and daughters were born to him. So large a family obviously necessitated far more than just this one house. God�s primary concern, however is in relating the principal facts that he wants us to understand and give our attention to. Other factors, although important to Him in His overall relationship with David, He naturally sets aside as having no bearing on the issues that need to concern us.
The terrace, then, to which our attention is primarily drawn, would have been prepared well in advance as the site for both David�s house and the Tabernacle, although some time could have elapsed between the construction of David�s house and the bringing up of the Ark, depending on how soon after the beginning of David�s reign the house was built. As I said just a little earlier, it was six years after David began to reign that he brought up the Ark from Gibeah. Within that space of time, and perhaps even while his house was under construction, David could have had his King�s Garden created there, not only for his own delight, but to provide a fitting aesthetic setting for the Tabernacle.
That terrace must have been beautiful in the extreme. It was the place where God had chosen to dwell in the midst of His People; where they could come and worship before Him and bring not only their material offerings, but their dedicated hearts and contrite spirits in which He took particular delight. From the beginning, God�s pleasure had always been in a simple tabernacle, a fact that He made explicitly clear to David when His servant began considering the inadequacy of a mere tent for the Ark of God as he sat looking upon the Tabernacle from the comfort and comparative luxury of his own sumptuous house of cedar (II Samuel 7:2). Notice how God made His feelings known on this matter through the prophet Nathan.
And it came to pass that night, that the word of the Lord came unto Nathan, saying, Go and tell My servant David, Thus saith the Lord, Shalt thou build Me an house for Me to dwell in? Whereas I have not dwelt in any house since the time that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt, even to this day, but have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle. In all the places wherein I have walked with all the children of Israel, spake I a word with any of the tribes of Israel, whom I commanded to feed My People Israel, saying Why build ye not Me an house of cedar. (II Samuel 7:4-7.)
We seem to give little, if any attention to the feelings that God expressed in those few brief verses above concerning the long period of time He had dwelt among His People within the fabric of a Tabernacle. Never, throughout the whole of that time, did He question why a more durable type of habitation was not considered for Him. Yet now, because David could not comfortably countenance such a disparity between the physical luxuries of his own regal abode and the Bedouin-like habitation of his God, the seeds were sown for a more stately and permanent edifice to take its place.
I have often wondered whether God agreed to a Temple on the same basis that He agreed to give His People a king: that it was in their hearts to follow after the example of the Gentile powers around them. Even though David himself was a man after God�s own heart, God well knew that the people looked more to the outward show of strength, power, and majestic splendour than to the inner, unseen workings of divinity.
Against the Sepulchers of David
Returning now, once again, to the account we are following in Nehemiah 3, we pick up the story in verse 16, to which I have already alluded but not yet quoted: �After him repaired Nehemiah the son of Azbuk, the ruler of the half part of Beth-zur, unto the place over against the sepulchres of David, and to the pool that was made, and unto the house of the Themighty.� The sepulchres of David are the sepulchres of the house of David. They were situated outside of the southern wall of the Temple.
Now Nehemiah is saying that those sepulchres were over against, or opposite, that part of the wall to which reference is here being made. Since the wall was still running along an approximate north-south axis at this point, as far as we are given to understand, then any point opposite to it must mean somewhere upslope in a westerly direction. That being the case, we must place the southern wall of the Temple just a little further to the north, again showing that the Temple would in no way have disturbed or encroached upon that important terrace region above the Gihon.
I have already referred to the pool that was made as very probably being the same artificial body of water that Isaiah 22:11 says was made between the two walls for the water of the old pool, and which could well have been the King�s Pool to which Nehemiah made his way on his secret midnight ride. Whatever this pool was, why it was made, and why Nehemiah was particularly commissioned to go there, must remain enshrouded in mystery for the present. Its obvious importance, however, is clear from what little we are told of it, so it needs to be kept well in mind.
The house of the mighty, or of the heroes, as it is otherwise translated, is likewise unknown. It could have been a small building constructed close by David�s house and dedicated as a type of memorial to those valiant fighting men of David�s small army who faithfully stood by him and fearlessly fought for him against greatly superior odds during the establishment of his kingdom. A register of those mighty warriors is given in I Chronicles 11, beginning with verse 10 which describes them as �. . . the mighty men whom David had, who strengthened themselves with him in his kingdom, and with all Israel, to make him king, according to the word of the Lord concerning Israel.�
The next two verses of Nehemiah 3 are particularly interesting in that the following two working parties therein referred to are made up of Levites. Each group was led by the ruler of the half part of Keilah, a town in the hill country of Hebron. The sections of wall they were responsible for repairing were in the very area that Nehemiah investigated when he first reached Jerusalem. As we have already seen, Nehemiah was committed to reaching only one site on his midnight ride, and that was where both the Fountain Gate and the King�s Garden were located. It was something within that immediate area that Nehemiah closely examined, although we are not told what it was.
That means God would expect us to carefully consider whatever further evidence was given in the account which would enable us to arrive at a reasonably logical conclusion, and follow that conclusion through. What we are told in Nehemiah 3:17-18 could well be at least part of the evidence we need. That length of wall assigned to those two parties of Levites could have been the section that Nehemiah is said to have viewed in verse 15 of chapter 2. Like any good detective, we cannot afford to overlook any clue that could possibly shed light on what we are seeking to find. Christ himself said that if there was anything we particularly wanted, we should diligently search for it, and that our search would ultimately be rewarded (Matthew 7:8).
If, as I speculated earlier, some point of access to the Davidic tomb complex had been disturbed and a secret means of entry had somehow been violated, who but the Levites had better authority to enter and investigate it. Since the sepulchres of David were said in verse 16 to be somewhere opposite, or over against this section of wall, then it is quite possible that such a point of entry could well have been located in this area.
One further point that should be taken into consideration in this respect is that five working parties are said to have been engaged on the wall that bordered the terrace, all the way from the pool of Siloah by the King�s Garden to the point where the wall turned and began to ascend. That can only mean that a great deal of repair work must have been necessary. There can be little doubt that the terrace area retained its importance throughout the whole period of the kings of Judah. The Fountain Gate was certainly the principal means of access to and from the city of David, and led down to the important highway that ran through the Kidron Valley.
Isaiah showed it to have been a point of mediation both in the days of Ahaz and in those of his son Hezekiah. It is little wonder, therefore, that it would have been strongly fortified, and strongly defended too when the Babylonian forces besieged the city in the days of Zedekiah. And especially would the fighting have been intense in those last days when Zedekiah and his men finally made their escape, and were pursued through the tunnel when the Babylonians eventually broke through. The stairs, somewhere between the two walls, that must have led down to the tunnel, may also have been a means of access to some secret entrance to David�s sepulchre, with the result that damage to it could have resulted from the fighting. This is nothing but speculation, I know, but it is something that needs to be considered, especially when we have the opportunity later to search that particular area for whatever subterranean passages may exist there.
Page last updated: 11/28/04 08:43 AM.
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