T H E K I N G ’S B U S I N E S S i l l l f l l l l l l |l l |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||n i |||||||||||||||||£ | Christian Evidences | = The SiloamStone | By PROF. S. ELLIOTT SKINNER | m L ecturer B ritish M u seu m .= riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiu iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiim in ,^ was discovered In 1880. Some native lads were playing in the so-called Pool of Siloam, when one of them, while wading up a channel cut in the rock, which leads into the pool, slipped and fell into the water. On rising to the surface he noticed what looked like letters on the rock which formed the southern wall of the channel. The lad was a pupil of Dr. Schick, a German architect in Jerusalem, whom he at once informed. Dr. Schick, on visiting the spot, found the ancient inscription part ly concealed by water. It was difficult to obtain an exact copy of it owing to this and the darkness of the tunnel, but in 1881 this was accomplished. The in scription having been cleaned by means of acid, squeezes were taken. The inscription, which is in the purest biblical Hebrew, is as follows: “ (Be hold) the excavation! Now this is the history of the excavation. While the excavators were lifting up the pick, each towards his neighbour, and while there were yet three cubits to (excavate, there was heard) the voice of one man calling to his neighbour, for there was an excess in the rock on the right hand (and on the left). And after that on the day of excavating the excavators had struck pick against pick, one against another, the waters flowed from the spring to the pool for a distance of 1200 cubits. And a hundred cubits was the height of the rock over the heads of,the excavators.” (See Professor Sayc« in “ The Higher Criticism and the Monu ments.” ) N the cast of the Siloam Stone, which rests next to the cast of the Moabite Stone, we have an early Hebrew Inscription. It
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This inscription is supposed to refer to the time of Hezekiah, for we read, “ how he made a pool, and a conduit, and brought water into the city” (2 Kings 20:20). Also, 2'Chron. 32:30 tells us, “ This same Hezekiah also stopped the upper watercourse of Gihon, and brought it straight down to the west side of the city of David.” Still, the inscription may even refer to an earlier engineering feat, for in the time of Ahaz, the father of Hezekiah, the Prophet Isaiah speaks of the “ waters of Shiloah that go softly” (Isa. 8 :6). Consequently there is a possibility that it is as old as the time of Solomon. The language is supposed to be quite as ancient as that of the Moabite Stone, and some words seem to suggest an even THE WORKS OF GOD The average quantity of aqueous vapor, or water held in the air, is esti mated to be 54,460,000,000,000 tons. The annual amount of rainfall is esti mated to be 186,240 cubic miles. If this rain were at any one moment equally spread over the land portion of the globe, it would cover all the continents with water three feet deep. Reflect now, that water in its natural state is 773 times heavier than air. And now, suppose that you had never heard or conceived of the principle of evaporation, and that you were re quired to lift up this vast mass of 54,- 460,000,000,000 tons of water one mile, two, three, four or five miles high into the air, and keep it suspended there. Well, what man, or all mankind com bined cannot do, or begin to do, God did on that second day of creation, and does daily. Water as vapor .occupies 1,600 times larger space than water as liquid. Hence, water as vapor is lighter than air, and naturally ascends. That is the whole secret. How manifold are the works of God.— G. D. Bord- man.
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