Nehemiah 2:14

Then I went on to the gate of the fountain, and to the king's pool: but there was no place for the beast that was under me to pass.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(14) The gate of the fountain of Siloah (Nehemiah 3:15), called also “the king’s pool.”

Benson Commentary

Nehemiah 2:14-16. I went on to the gate of the fountain — That is, which led to the fountain, to wit, of Siloah or Gihon. And to the king’s pool — That which King Hezekiah had made, of which see 2 Chronicles 32:3-30. But there was no place for the beast, &c. — The way being obstructed with heaps of rubbish. Then went I up by the brook — Of Kidron, of which see on 2 Samuel 15:23. And so returned — Having gone around about the city. Nor to the rest that did the work — Or were to do it, that is, whom he intended to employ in it.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

2:9-18 When Nehemiah had considered the matter, he told the Jews that God had put it into his heart to build the wall of Jerusalem. He does not undertake to do it without them. By stirring up ourselves and one another to that which is good, we strengthen ourselves and one another for it. We are weak in our duty, when we are cold and careless.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The gate of the fountain - A gate on the eastern side of the Tyropoeon valley, not far from the pool of Siloam (probably "the king's pool." (Compare Nehemiah 3:15).

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

14. Then—that is, after having passed through the gate of the Essenes.

I went on to the gate of the fountain—that is, Siloah, from which turning round the fount of Ophel.

to the king's pool: but there was no place for the beast that was under me to pass—that is, by the sides of this pool (Solomon's) there being water in the pool, and too much rubbish about it to permit the passage of the beast.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

The gate of the fountain, i.e. which led to the fountain, to wit, of Siloah or Gibon.

The king’s pool; that which king Hezekiah had made: of which see 2 Chronicles 32:3,30.

There was no place for the beast to pass; the way being obstructed with heaps of rubbish.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Then I went on to the pool of the fountain, and to the king's pool..... That led to the fountain Siloah or Gihon, so called; it was the way to the potter's field, to Bethlehem, Hebron, Gaza, and Egypt. Rauwolff says (t) there is still standing on the outside of the valley Tyropaeum (which distinguishes the two mountains Zion and Moriah) the gate of the fountain, which hath its name, because it leadeth towards the fountain of Siloah, called the king's pool:

but there was no place for the beast that was under me to pass; because of the heaps of rubbish that lay there.

(t) Travels, par. 3. c. 3. p. 227.

Geneva Study Bible

Then I went on to the gate of the fountain, and to the king's pool: but there was no place for the beast that was under me to pass.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

14. I went on] Literally ‘I crossed’ or ‘passed over.’

to the gate of the fountain] R.V. to the fountain gate. On the disputed identification of ‘the fountain gate,’ see Nehemiah 3:15, Nehemiah 12:37. It seems to have stood almost at the southernmost part of the city, at the mouth of the narrow valley of the Tyropoeon. It derived its name either from its proximity to the waters of ‘the only real well at Jerusalem,’ now known as Bîr Eyub, ‘the well of Job’ (probably En-Rogel) ‘a little below the junction of the Kidron and Hinnom valleys’ (Wilson’s Jerusalem, p. 104), or from its proximity to Siloam, called by Josephus ‘a fountain’ (πηγή) in Bell. Jud. v. 4. 1.

the king’s pool] Probably to be identified with the Pool of Siloam, and here called ‘the king’s pool’ because it adjoined ‘the king’s garden.’ It consisted of an upper and a lower reservoir (Isaiah 7:3; Isaiah 22:9; Isaiah 22:11; 2 Kings 18:17) fed by a subterranean conduit from the waters of Gihon (cf. 2 Kings 20:20).

there was no place] Apparently owing to the ruins of the walls and the steepness of the slope Nehemiah could not continue his investigation, following the line of the wall.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 14. - The gate of the fountain. A gate near the pool of Siloam (which, though bearing that name in Nehemiah 3:15, seems to be here called "the king's pool" ); perhaps the "gate between two walls of 2 Kings 25:4. There was no place for the beast that was under me to pass. The accumulated rubbish blocked the way. The animal could not proceed. Nehemiah therefore dismounted, and "in the night, dark as it was, pursued his way on foot. Nehemiah 2:14

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"And I went on to the fountain-gate, and to the king's pool, and there was no room for the beast to come through under me." The very name of the fountain-or well-gate points to the foundation of Siloah (see rem. on Nehemiah 3:15); hence it lay on the eastern declivity of Zion, but not in the district or neighbourhood of the present Bb el Mogharibeh, in which tradition finds the ancient dung-gate, but much farther south, in the neighbourhood of the pool of Siloah; see rem. on Nehemiah 3:15. The King's pool is probably the same which Josephus (bell. Jud. v. 4. 2) calls Σολομῶνος κολυμβήθρα, and places east of the spring of Siloah, and which is supposed by Robinson (Palestine, ii. pp. 149, 159) and Thenius (das vorexil. Jerus., appendix to a commentary on the books of the Kings, p. 20) to be the present Fountain of the Virgin. Bertheau, however, on the other hand, rightly objects that the Fountain of the Virgin lying deep in the rock, and now reached by a descent of thirty steps, could not properly be designated a pool. He tries rather to identify the King's pool with the outlet of a canal investigated by Tobler (Topogr. i. p. 91f.), which the latter regards as a conduit for rain-water, fluid impurities, or even the blood of sacrificed animals; but Bertheau as an aqueduct which, perhaps at the place where its entrance is now found, once filled a pool, of which, indeed, no trace has as yet been discovered. But apart from the difficulty of calling the outlet of a canal a pool (Arnold in Herzog's Realencycl. xviii. p. 656), the circumstance, that Tobler could find in neither of the above-described canals any trace of high antiquity, tells against this conjecture. Much more may be said in favour of the view of E. G. Schultz (Jerusalem, p. 58f.), that the half-choked-up pool near Ain Silwan may be the King's pool and Solomon's pool; for travellers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries mention a piscina grandis foras and natatoria Silo at the mouth of the fountain of Siloah (comp. Leyrer in Herzog's Realencycl. xvi. p. 372). See also rem. on Nehemiah 3:15. Here there was no room for the beast to get through, the road being choked up with the ruins of the walls that had been destroyed, so that Nehemiah was obliged to dismount.