Isaiah Chapter 22 verse 9 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 9. - Ye have seen also.... are many; rather, ye saw also were many. The breaches of the city of David. "The city of David" may be here a name for Jerusalem generally, as "the city where David dwelt" (Isaiah 29:1), or it may designate the eastern hill, where David fixed his residence (2 Samuel 5:7; Nehemiah 3:15, 16, 25; Nehemiah 12:37). In 2 Chronicles 32:5 we read that Hezekiah at this time "built up all the wall that was broken, and raised it up to the towers, and another wall without, and repaired Mille in the city of David," where a particular part of Jerusalem seems certainly to be meant. Ye gathered together the waters of the lower pool. The arrangements made by Hezekiah with respect to the water-supply at the time of Sennacherib's invasion, seem to have been the following: He found on the north of the city, where the Assyrian attack was certain to be delivered, in the vicinity of the Damascus gate, a pool or reservoir (Isaiah 7:3), fed by a conduit from some natural source, which lay open and patent to view. The superfluous water ran off from it by a "brook" (2 Chronicles 32:4), which passed down the Tyropoeon valley, and joined the Kedron to the southeast of Ophel. His first step was to cover over and conceal the open reservoir, and also the" brook" which ran from it, at least as far as the northern city wall, to prevent their use by the Assyrians. He then further made a conduit underground (2 Chronicles 32:30) within the city, along the Tyropoeon depression, to a second reservoir, or "pool," also within the city, which could be freely used by the inhabitants (see ver. 11; and comp. Ecclus. 48:17). Further, it is probable that he carried a conduit from this second pool, under the temple area, to the" fount of the Virgin" on the eastern side of Ophel, and thence further conveyed the water by a tunnel through Ophel to the "pool of Siloam." (This last may be the work here alluded to.) The inscription recently discovered at this peel is probably of Hezekiah's time (see 'Quarterly Statement' of Palest. Expl. Fund for April, 1881, p. 70).

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(9) Ye have seen also the breaches . . .--The prophet paints the hasty preparations for defence. So in 2Chronicles 32:5 : "Hezekiah built up all the wall that was broken, and raised it up to the towers," and added an outer line of defence. The "city of David" is, of course, the fortress of Zion.The waters of the lower pool.--This was the Lower Gihon, now the Birket-es-Sultan. The operation is described more fully in 2Chronicles 32:3-4. Its object was to stop the outflow of the streams, and gather them into a reservoir, partly, of course, for the supply of the inhabitants during the siege, but still more that the Assyrian armies might find little or no water in the immediate neighbourhood of the city. Sargon, in his inscriptions, describes like preparations at Ashdod (Smith, Assyr. Discov., p. 291).