Upper Pool
Upper Pool is a body of water mentioned in the Old Testament, located in the region of Judea in modern-day Israel. Known today as Jerusalem. It appears across 3 verses in Scripture.
Biblical History
The Upper Pool was a reservoir located outside Jerusalem's walls along the aqueduct that channeled water into the city. It appears three times in the Old Testament in contexts of significant political and prophetic importance. In 2 Kings 18:17 and Isaiah 36:2, the Upper Pool is named as the place where the Assyrian field commander (the Rabshakeh) stationed himself when he came to demand Jerusalem's surrender during Sennacherib's siege in 701 BC. The spot was deliberately chosen for maximum psychological impact, within earshot of the city's inhabitants. Isaiah 7:3 records that God directed the prophet to meet King Ahaz at the end of the conduit of the Upper Pool, where Isaiah delivered his famous oracle about the virgin birth of Immanuel during the Syro-Ephraimite crisis. This reservoir thus served as a backdrop for two of the most critical moments in Judah's history, a test of faith during political crisis and a summons to trust in God's provision against overwhelming odds. The Upper Pool's location near the Fuller's Field placed it along a well-known public route.
Archaeological & Historical Notes
The Upper Pool is generally identified with a reservoir along the Hinnom Valley or the northern approaches to Jerusalem, connected to the city's ancient water supply system. Its association with the conduit or aqueduct suggests an engineered channel bringing water from springs outside the city. Some scholars identify it with the Birket Mamilla, a pool on the western side of ancient Jerusalem. Archaeological investigation of Jerusalem's water systems has revealed extensive rock-cut channels and cisterns from the Iron Age period. Hezekiah's famous tunnel (2 Kings 20:20), which redirected the Gihon Spring, may have been partly motivated by the vulnerability exposed by the Upper Pool's location outside the walls.
Verse Appearances (3)
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References
- Orr, J. (ed.) (1915) The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia. Chicago: Howard-Severance Company. [Public Domain]
- OpenBible.info (n.d.) Bible Geocoding. Available at: https://www.openbible.info/geo/. [CC BY 4.0]
- Bagnall, R. et al. (eds.) (n.d.) Pleiades: A Gazetteer of Past Places. Available at: https://pleiades.stoa.org. [CC BY 3.0]
- Wikidata contributors (n.d.) Wikidata. Available at: https://www.wikidata.org. [CC0]
- Lawrence, D. et al. (2025) Villages to Empires: a settlement dataset for the Southern Levant. doi:10.5281/zenodo.15111732. [CC BY 4.0]
- Church of England (1769) The Holy Bible, Authorized (King James) Version. [Public Domain]