I was watching a film on Netflix recently called “The Boy who Harnessed the Wind.” It tells the true story of 13-year-old William Kamkwamba who built a wind turbine to save his Malawian village from famine. From a combination of corporate exploitation and greed, Government corruption and a failed rainy season, the people of William’s village and surrounding areas were starving.

What was significant to me was that the village had a well which was not dry, there was enough water in it to supply all their needs. However, because there was no pump they could not draw enough of it quickly enough to irrigate their crops. And so they were starving.

Back in King Ahaz and Hezekiah’s time, Jerusalem faced a similar problem. There was an abundant supply of water in the Gihon spring but it was located outside the walls of Jerusalem. This meant that it had to be laboriously collected in buckets day by day. Its location also left the city vulnerable. If there was a besieging army it was easy for them to prevent the people getting to the spring.

King Ahaz lived around the time Isaiah was prophesying. He started to build a tunnel from the spring into the city and his son, King Hezekiah, probably completed it. You can read more about the inscription found in the 19th century and Isaiah’s softly flowing waters of Shiloah in my other blog on the subject.

This tunnel would have had a significant impact on the lives of the people of Jerusalem at the time. The water from the Gihon spring flowed through Hezekiah’s tunnel into the Pool of Siloam (Sent). Later on Jesus sent a blind man to that pool who returned seeing (John 9).

According to the understanding I have been given (hopefully by the Lord – I will let you be the judge of that) the following is what is represented by the spring, Hezekiah’s tunnel and the pool of Siloam (Sent):

1. The Gihon spring represents the 5 fold ministries and gifts of the Body of Christ, His Church. Powerful and upwelling these gifts and ministries supply sustenance and support for any living church. Without them any church will die – or was never living in the first place.
2. The tunnel represents a means of enabling the 5 fold ministries and spiritual gifts to function or be channelled into a church. I believe Paul has shown us how this is done using the model of church meetings he describes in 1 Cor. 14:26- 40.
3. The Pool of Siloam is the healing place for the saints in the midst of the church. The 5 fold ministries and spiritual gifts are functioning in it and people are being healed, set free and delivered.

The literal tunnel in Jerusalem runs for 500m under the wall of the city and the waters emerge, gently flowing, in the centre of Jerusalem. However the work required to build it took two teams of workers coming at it from both directions and meeting in the middle. They didn’t have tunnel boring machines so this was wielding pickaxes and sledgehammers, blow by blow at the rock that underlaid the city’s foundations. There was risk involved. No doubt many said at the time it was too dangerous. Perhaps some lives were lost. But the results made it all worthwhile.

It wasn’t long after the tunnel was built that the King of Assyria arrived with a horrific army and a reputation for flaying people alive. All he could do was lock Hezekiah and his inhabitants up inside the city. He knew the water supply and no doubt tried to block up the tunnel but who knows how much valuable time Jerusalem gained while the waters still flowed. In the end not even the spring could save them but God intervened.

Without Him we can do nothing.

But with Him anything is possible.