Siloam (pool)

• Abraham the Pharisee baptized in

148:8.1The last week of the so­journ at Beth­saida the Je­ru­sa­lem spies be­came much di­vided in their at­ti­tude to­ward Je­sus and his teach­ings. Three of these Phar­isees were tremen­dously im­pressed by what they had seen and heard. Mean­while, at Je­ru­sa­lem, Abra­ham, a young and in­flu­en­tial mem­ber of the San­hedrin, pub­licly es­poused the teach­ings of Je­sus and was bap­tized in the pool of Siloam by Ab­ner. All Je­ru­sa­lem was agog over this event, and mes­sen­gers were im­me­di­ately dis­patched to Beth­saida re­call­ing the six spy­ing Phar­isees.

• golden pitcher filled at

162:4.4On the last day of the feast al­most four hun­dred and fifty priests with a cor­re­spond­ing num­ber of Levites of­fi­ci­ated. At day­break the pil­grims as­sem­bled from all parts of the city, each car­ry­ing in the right hand a sheaf of myr­tle, wil­low, and palm branches, while in the left hand each one car­ried a branch of the par­a­dise ap­ple—the cit­ron, or the “for­bid­den fruit.” These pil­grims di­vided into three groups for this early morn­ing cer­e­mony. One band re­mained at the tem­ple to at­tend the morn­ing sac­ri­fices; an­other group marched down be­low Je­ru­sa­lem to near Maza to cut the wil­low branches for the adorn­ment of the sac­ri­fi­cial al­tar, while the third group formed a pro­ces­sion to march from the tem­ple be­hind the wa­ter priest, who, to the sound of the sil­very trum­pets, bore the golden pitcher which was to con­tain the sym­bolic wa­ter, out through Ophel to near Siloam, where was lo­cated the foun­tain gate. Af­ter the golden pitcher had been filled at the pool of Siloam, the pro­ces­sion marched back to the tem­ple, en­ter­ing by way of the wa­ter gate and go­ing di­rectly to the court of the priests, where the priest bear­ing the wa­ter pitcher was joined by the priest bear­ing the wine for the drink of­fer­ing. These two priests then re­paired to the sil­ver fun­nels lead­ing to the base of the al­tar and poured the con­tents of the pitch­ers therein. The ex­e­cu­tion of this rite of pour­ing the wine and the wa­ter was the sig­nal for the as­sem­bled pil­grims to be­gin the chant­ing of the Psalms from 113 to 118 in­clu­sive, in al­ter­na­tion with the Levites. And as they re­peated these lines, they would wave their sheaves at the al­tar. Then fol­lowed the sac­ri­fices for the day, as­so­ci­ated with the re­peat­ing of the Psalm for the day, the Psalm for the last day of the feast be­ing the eighty-sec­ond, be­gin­ning with the fifth verse.

• Siloam (pool)

162:6.1On the last day, the great day of the feast, as the pro­ces­sion from the pool of Siloam passed through the tem­ple courts, and just af­ter the wa­ter and the wine had been poured down upon the al­tar by the priests, Je­sus, stand­ing among the pil­grims, said: “If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink. From the Fa­ther above I bring to this world the wa­ter of life. He who be­lieves me shall be filled with the spirit which this wa­ter rep­re­sents, for even the Scrip­tures have said, ‘Out of him shall flow rivers of liv­ing wa­ters.’ When the Son of Man has fin­ished his work on earth, there shall be poured out upon all flesh the liv­ing Spirit of Truth. Those who re­ceive this spirit shall never know spir­i­tual thirst.”

• Josiah washed clay off in

164:3.8When Je­sus had spo­ken, he said to Na­than­iel and Thomas: “Let us cre­ate the sight of this blind man on this Sab­bath day that the scribes and Phar­isees may have the full oc­ca­sion which they seek for ac­cus­ing the Son of Man.” Then, stoop­ing over, he spat on the ground and mixed the clay with the spit­tle, and speak­ing of all this so that the blind man could hear, he went up to Josiah and put the clay over his sight­less eyes, say­ing: “Go, my son, wash away this clay in the pool of Siloam, and im­me­di­ately you shall re­ceive your sight.” And when Josiah had so washed in the pool of Siloam, he re­turned to his friends and fam­ily, see­ing.

• Josiah washed clay off in

164:3.12Je­sus made use of the clay and the spit­tle and di­rected him to wash in the sym­bolic pool of Siloam for three rea­sons:

• semisacred place

164:3.142. As the blind man had not asked for heal­ing, and since the faith he had was slight, these ma­te­rial acts were sug­gested for the pur­pose of en­cour­ag­ing him. He did be­lieve in the su­per­sti­tion of the ef­fi­cacy of spit­tle, and he knew the pool of Siloam was a semisa­cred place. But he would hardly have gone there had it not been nec­es­sary to wash away the clay of his anoint­ing. There was just enough cer­e­mony about the trans­ac­tion to in­duce him to act.

• 2000 believers baptized in

194:1.4By half past four o’clock more than two thou­sand new be­liev­ers fol­lowed the apos­tles down to the pool of Siloam, where Pe­ter, An­drew, James, and John bap­tized them in the Mas­ter’s name. And it was dark when they had fin­ished with bap­tiz­ing this mul­ti­tude.