Nehemiah 3:15

15. The gate of the fountain Situated near the southeastern corner of the city, and near the pool of Siloam, from which, perhaps, it took its name. See note, Nehemiah 2:14.

Covered it An expression used of no other gate. It suggests that this gate had received a more architectural finish or broader covering than others.

Wall of the pool This may mean the wall by which the pool itself was stoned up or inclosed, or it may mean the city wall opposite or nearest to the pool.

Siloah השׁלח , hashelach, the sent; compare John 9:7, note. The pool probably received this name from the fact that its waters are sent down to it through a subterranean aqueduct from another pool higher up in the Kedron valley. Josephus describes the pool of Siloam as situated at the mouth of the Tyropoeon valley, (Nehemiah 5:4) and there can be no doubt of its identity with the Siloah of this text, and the Shiloah of Isaiah 8:6, the Siloam of John 9:7, and the cistern still known by the same name at the southeast of Jerusalem.

By the king’s garden This lay at the mouth of the Tyropoeon, and stretched off in terraces down into the Kedron valley below. The water of Siloam runs off and is lost in this garden. The king’s garden probably extended some distance down the Kedron valley beyond its junction with the valley of Hinnom. Robinson speaks of “the small oblong plain there formed,” as now “covered with an olive grove, and with the traces of former gardens extending down the valley from the present gardens of Siloam. Indeed, this whole spot is the prettiest and most fertile around Jerusalem.”

The stairs that go down from the city of David Tristram identifies these stairs with a series of steps recently discovered at the southwest corner of Zion, but the order followed by the sacred writer should lead us rather to look for them on the eastern side of Zion, leading down towards the pool of Siloam. Their exact locality, however, is doubtful.