The prophet Nathan served during the reigns of both King David and his son Solomon. Although Nathan was usually “behind the scenes” during the reigns of these kings, it is probable that no other single person was more influential during that pivotal era of biblical history.
Nathan is mentioned many times throughout the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles – mainly during the darkest and most troubled times of King David’s reign. We first meet him in 2 Samuel 7:2 when David told the prophet of his desire to build a temple for God. At first Nathan encouraged the king, but we are told that later that night God spoke to Nathan, telling him in detail why he would not accept a temple built by David, stressing that David had shed much blood (1 Chronicles 28:3).
It was not a flattering message to have to relay, but we see something of Nathan’s character in that he did not attempt to smooth over the reason for God’s refusal of David (or to cover the fact that he himself had been wrong to originally encourage the king) – we are specifically told that “Nathan reported to David all the words of this entire revelation” (2 Samuel 7:17, emphasis added).
Later, Nathan had to confront David with the king’s sins of adultery with Bathsheba and of having her husband Uriah killed (2 Samuel 12:1-15). Considering the fact that David had already killed to hide this situation, we see Nathan’s tremendous strength of character and faith in boldly accusing the king. Nathan not only accused David as God had commanded him to do, but also predicted that David’s first child by Bathsheba would die, and that the king would suffer great anguish as a result of the actions of his own family members.
Close to the end of David’s life, Nathan related to David the news of his son Adonijah’s plan to seize the throne. In this way the prophet skillfully enabled the hasty coronation of David’s chosen heir – Solomon.
Nathan was not simply a bringer of bad news, however. He also encouraged the king and informed David that his throne would be established forever (1 Chronicles 17:1-15). He was clearly a trusted advisor throughout his service to the king and a man of important accomplishments. There appears to have been a book written either by Nathan himself or about his service as a prophet (1 Chronicles 29:29), and Nathan apparently wrote a history of King Solomon along with two others (2 Chronicles 9:29).
But Nathan’s major accomplishment was undoubtedly the true faith he repeatedly showed in expressing tough love for David and confronting the king with his errors. Nathan’s character and faithfulness in conveying the word of God, no matter how negative the message sometimes may have seemed, obviously gained him the respect of Israel’s greatest king. True to his name, the prophet surely was a “Gift of God” to David in helping him to correct his course when he went astray (for example, Psalm 51) – something the king must surely have appreciated over time. In fact, it is doubtless a sign of David’s respect and love for Nathan that the king named his third son after the prophet (1 Chronicles 3:5). And it is through that Nathan – not Solomon or any of David’s other powerful sons – that Jesus Christ was descended (Luke 3:31). The prophet Nathan served in a “behind the scenes” career, but one which had a tremendous effect for good. He is an example to all of us of the value of truth spoken in love, and of faith in dealing with difficult situations concerning those we strive to serve.
Most readers of the New Testament remember the dramatic story of how Jesus healed a blind man at the Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem (John 9:1–11). The pool was a major feature of ancient Jerusalem as it was fed by spring waters which qualified it for use as a mikveh for ritual bathing. That is why Jesus told the man he healed “ ‘Go …wash in the Pool of Siloam’ … So the man went and washed, and came home seeing” (vs. 7).
The pool’s history predates the time of Jesus by many centuries, however. It was constructed by Hezekiah, the king of Judah in the eighth century B.C., who anticipated a siege against Jerusalem by invading Assyrian armies (2 Kings 20:20). So the pool began as an important source of fresh water for the inhabitants of ancient Jerusalem, and probably only later began to be used as a place of ritual bathing, as it evidently was in Jesus’ time.
Although the history of the Pool of Siloam was well known, its exact location was not. In 1880, the famous Siloam Inscription was discovered carved on the wall inside the water tunnel made by Hezekiah which led to the Pool of Siloam. The ancient Hebrew inscription records how the tunnel was constructed by digging from opposite ends and meeting in the middle. So the tunnel that supplied the pool’s water was known, yet the pool itself remained buried.
Traditionally, the site of the Siloam Pool was the pool and church that were built by the Byzantine empress Eudocia (c. A.D. 400–460) to commemorate the miracle recounted in the New Testament. However, the exact location of the original pool as it existed during the time of Jesus remained a mystery until only recently.
British-American excavations conducted in the 1890’s led to the uncovering of some of the steps of the pool itself near the City of David to the southeast of the traditional site, and in the 1960’s famed British archeologist Kathleen Kenyon found more of the steps. In 2004, municipal water company work exposed additional steps and subsequently Israel’s archaeological authority, the IAA, began systematic excavation of the area. Now the IAA has announced that it has confirmed that the pool was larger than previously thought – 225 feet wide and approximately 1.25 acres in area – and that steps existed on at least three sides of the pool, allowing visitors to sit and immerse themselves in the water. IAA also announced that a good portion of the pool is now excavated, and it is hoped that it will soon be opened to the public for the first time in 2,000 years.
The Pool of Siloam, “Hezekiah’s Tunnel,” and the texts and finds that have been unearthed in and around these sites are of great importance for understanding and establishing the biblical stories. According to Professor Gershon Galil, head of the Institute for Biblical Studies and Ancient History at Haifa University in Isarel, these finds “support the claim that scriptures in the Book of Kings are based on texts originating from chronicles and royal inscriptions and that the Bible reflects historical reality and not imagination.”
The Pool of Siloam is also important as part of the wider context of ancient evidence of the Jerusalem of Jesus’ time. According to the City of David Foundation’s Ze’ev Orenstein, “The half-mile running through the City of David, from the Pool of Siloam in the south, continuing along the Pilgrimage Road, up to the footsteps of the Western Wall, Southern Steps, and Temple Mount, represents the most [religiously] significant half-mile on the planet.” Archaeology continues to recover the buried world of the Old and New Testament stories, and – as Orenstein affirms – soon visitors to the area will be able to “see with their own eyes, touch with their own hands, and walk with their own feet upon the very stones” described in those stories.
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