1 About 2,700 years ago, Jerusalem was in great danger. The Assyrian army, one of the strongest armies in the world at that time, was coming to attack the city. King Hezekiah knew that if the enemy surrounded Jerusalem, the people inside would need water to survive.
2 The city's main source of water was the Gihon Spring. The problem was that the spring was outside the city walls. So Hezekiah decided on a bold plan: to dig a tunnel through the rock that would bring the water from the spring into the city. That way, the people of Jerusalem would have water, and the enemy would not.
3 The workers had no machines. They dug with simple tools, working by the light of oil lamps. To finish faster, two teams started digging from the two ends of the tunnel and tried to meet in the middle. This was very difficult, because they could not see each other through the rock. In some places, the tunnel turns and twists, and nobody knows exactly how the teams found their way.
4 In the end, they succeeded. The tunnel is 533 meters long, and the water still flows through it today. The Bible also tells about this tunnel, in the Book of Kings. In 1880, a boy who was playing in the tunnel discovered an inscription on the wall. It describes the moment when the two teams heard each other's voices through the rock and broke through to meet. This inscription is one of the oldest Hebrew writings ever found.
5 Today, visitors can walk through Hezekiah's Tunnel in the City of David. The tunnel is narrow and dark, and in some places the water reaches your knees. The walk takes about half an hour. Bring a flashlight and shoes that can get wet, and imagine the workers who dug it with their hands, almost three thousand years ago.