User:Elianakely/Sandbox

== Today, Chizkiyahu's Tunnel is now one of the most popular and most visited places in Israel. In the past, things were a little different. The name Chizkiyahu's Tunnel is named after the man who built the tunnel, Chizkiyahu. He was the King of Judah from 715 to 686 BC. and till this day remains to be one of the greatest known. Chizkiyahu came to Judah in a time of devastation and loss of religion. He helped them reinstate many of their previously lost religious traditions and set out to abolish idolatry almost completely, from his kingdom. One of the major conflicts during his reign was one made by the Assyrians. Chizkiyahu saw that they would come and try to conquer Jerusalem and he immediately seized to stop it. He did so in two ways. Chizkiyahu knew that one could not survive without water and did not want to share his water with the Assyrians. Instead he built a wall around the "Pool of Shiloh" (their main source of water), stopping their water from flowing outside of their city, to the Assyrians. Second, he built Chizkiyahu's Tunnel, a tunnel that was built underground to provide Jerusalem underground with water from the now unreachable Shiloh Pool. The reason this tunnel was so needed at the time was because he gave the soldiers and city of Jerusalem a way to keep the enemies from benefiting from their resources, while still being able to benefit from it themselves. The tunnels remains till this day as very popular spot for tourists to explore. The tunnel measures to be about 535 meters long, and about 60 cm wide. The height of the tunnel changes throughout, from 1.45 meters to 5.08 meters. Sense even today Chizkiyahu's Tunnel is connected to the Pool of Shiloh the water still rises up inside the tunnel, almost waist deep in the winter and knee deep in the summer and spring (depending on rain). One last interesting fact about the Chizkiyahu Tunnel is the Hebrew inscription written permanently on the wall. Translated it comes to mean "when (the tunnel) was driven through. And this was the way in which it was cut through: While... (were) still... axe(s), each man toward his fellow, and while there were still three cubits to be cut through, (there was heard) the voice of a man calling to his fellow, for there was an overlap in the rock on the right (and on the left). And when the tunnel was driven through, the quarrymen hewed (the rock) each man toward his fellow, axe against axe; and the water flowed from the spring toward the reservoir for 1200 cubits, and the height of the rock above the head(s) of the quarrymen was one hundred cubits." This inscription was founded in 1880 and was said to be written by King Chizkiyahu himself. ==