SILOE. - Name designating a spring, today 'Ajn Siṭṭī Marjam, east of Jerusalem, as well as the channel beneath the hill of Ophel through which its course passes and the pool that it forms at its outlet. The waters of S. (mē haš-Šilōah) are mentioned in Is. 8, 6, and the pool of S. (bērēkhath haš-Šelah) in Neh. 3, 15. Through the Greek Σιλώχη, the name of S. is preserved in the modern Arab village of Silwān, southeast of Jerusalem.
The channel is of particular importance because in it, in the year 1880, an ancient Hebrew inscription—the longest extant—was discovered by chance by a boy bathing in the adjacent pool. This inscription commemorates the excavation of the channel and may be attributed to the time of King Ezechia (ca. 700 B.C.), on the basis of the biblical accounts of his construction of an aqueduct to bring water to Jerusalem (II Reg. 20, 20; II Par. 32, 30).
According to the most recent studies, the most probable translation of the inscription is as follows: “... the piercing. And this is the account of the piercing: while ... the pick-
axe, one toward the other, and while there still remained three cubits to be excavated, the voice of one man calling to the other was heard, because there was a fissure [?] in the rock from the right and from ... And on the day of the piercing the excavators struck one against the other, pickaxe against pickaxe, and the water flowed from the spring to the pool for 1200 cubits. And 100 cubits was the height of the rock above the heads of the excavators.”