page_title: Hezekiah
section_title: Hezekiah's construction
hierarchical_section_title: Hezekiah / Biblical sources / Hezekiah's construction
caption_attribution_description: we then entered hezekiah's tunnel from the gihon spring and then walked all the way through to the other side to get to the pool of siloam. hezekiah built this tunnel to bring water into the city from the gihon spring when the southern kingdom of judah was being attacked by assyria.
context_page_description: Hezekiah, or Ezekias, was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the son of Ahaz and the 13th king of Judah. He is considered a very righteous king in both the Second Book of Kings and the Second Book of Chronicles. He is also one of the more prominent kings of Judah mentioned in the Bible and is one of the kings mentioned in the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew. "No king of Judah, among either his predecessors or his successors, could ... be compared to him", according to 2 Kings 18:5.
  Edwin Thiele concluded that his reign was between c. 715 and 686 BC.
  According to the biblical narrative, Hezekiah witnessed the destruction of the northern Kingdom of Israel by Sargon's Assyrians in c. 722 BC and was king of Judah during the siege of Jerusalem by Sennacherib in 701 BC. Hezekiah enacted sweeping religious reforms, including a strict mandate for the sole worship of Yahweh and a prohibition on venerating other deities within the Temple of Jerusalem. Isaiah and Micah prophesied during his reign.
context_section_description: Knowing that Jerusalem would eventually be subject to siege, Hezekiah had been preparing for some time by fortifying the walls of the capital, building towers, and constructing a tunnel to bring fresh water to the city from a spring outside its walls. He made at least two major preparations that would help Jerusalem to resist conquest: the construction of the Siloam Tunnel, and construction of the Broad Wall.
  "When Sennacherib had come, intent on making war against Jerusalem, Hezekiah consulted with his officers about stopping the flow of the springs outside the city … for otherwise, they thought, the King of Assyria would come and find water in abundance" (2 Chronicles 32:2–4).
   
  The narratives of the Bible state that Sennacherib's army besieged Jerusalem. (Isaiah 33:1; 2 Kings 18:17; 2 Chronicles 32:9; Isaiah 36)
caption: Siloam Tunnel
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