Pools of the Bible
Hebrew: בְּרֵכַ֥ת —transliteration: berekhah
Greek: κολυμβήθρα —transliteration: kolumbéthra
Modern Arabic: birket
a pond, or reservoir, for holding water; an artificial cistern or tank
Scripture mentions the following pools:
- Pools of Solomon
- Pool of Gibeon (2 Samuel 2:13 KJV)
- Pool of Hebron (2 Samuel 4:12 KJV)
- the upper pool at Jerusalem (2 Kings 18:17 KJV; 20:20 KJV)
- the Pool of Samaria (1 Kings 22:38 KJV)
- the King’s Pool (Neh. 2:14 KJV)
- Pool of Siloah (Neh. 3:15 KJV; Eccles. 2:6 KJV)
- the fishpools of Heshbon (Song of Songs 7:4 KJV)
- the “lower pool,” and the “old pool” (Isaiah 22:9, 11 KJV)
the Pool of Bethesda (aka Bethsaida) where Christ instantly healed a desperate man who had been ill for 38 years (John 5:2, 4, 7 KJV)
- Pool of Siloam (John 9:7, 11 KJV)
- The “pools” spoken of in Isaiah 14:23 are the marshes caused by the ruin of the canals of the Euphrates in the neighborhood of Babylon.
- The cisterns or pools of the Holy City are for the most part excavations beneath the surface. Such are the vast cisterns in the temple hill that were discovered by the engineers of the Palestine Exploration Fund. These underground caverns are about thirty-five in number, and are capable of storing about ten million gallons of water. They are connected with one another by passages and tunnels.
- MIRAGE (an optical illusion of a pool of water)
Isaiah (35:7 KJV) says, “The parched ground shall become a pool.” This is rendered in the Revised King James Version “glowing sand,” etc. (marginal note, “the mirage,” etc.).
The Arabs call the mirage “serab,” plainly the same as the Hebrew word sarab, here rendered “parched ground.” “The mirage shall become a pool”, i.e., the mock-lake of the burning desert shall become a real lake, “the pledge of refreshment and joy.”
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