GEEON (gi'hon), (Heb. i447'1.„{"hce-khonc').
1. A fountain near Jerusalem. The place out side the city to which the young Solomon was takcn to be anointed king was called Gthon, but its direction is not indicated (t Kings i :33, 38). Subsequently King Hezekiah 'stopped the upper water-course (or upper out-flow of the waters) of Gihon, and brought it straight down to the west side of the city of David (2 Chron. xxxii: 3o; xxxiii:x4). This was, perhaps, on occasion of the approach of the Assyrian army under Sen nacherib, when, to prevent the besiegers from finding water, great numbers of the people la bored with much diligence in stopping the water of the fountains without the city, and in particu lar of 'the brook that ran through the midst of the land' (2 Chron. xxxii :3, 4). The author of the book of Sirach (xlviii :17) also states, that 'Hezekiah brought water into the midst of the city ; he dug with iron into the rock, and built fountains for the waters.' The fountain of Gihon is also mentioned by Josephus. From a compari son of these passages the conclusion has been reached, since confirmed by Dr. Robinson (Re searches, i. 313), that there existed anciently a fountain of Gihon, on the west side of the city, which was 'stopped' or covered over by Hezekialt, and its waters brought by subterraneous chan nels into the city. Before that time it would nat
urally have flowed down through the valley of Gihon, and probably formed the brook which was stopped at the same time. Captain Sir Charles \Varren claimed to have traced the di verted water course and secured the stone plug, twelve inches in length, with which the drain was stopped (see Harper, Bible and Alod. Disc.) The fountain may have been stopped, and its waters thus secured very easily by digging deep and erect ing over it one or more vaulted subterranean chambers.
2. Upper Gihon is commonly identified with Bir ket Mamilla, and lower Gihon with Birket es Sultan. The former of these pools is less than half a mile west, the latter not the third of a mile south, of the Jaffa gate. These pools, how ever, are not now fed by living springs. Largely on this account the question has been raised in recent years whether Gihon should not be identi fied with the fountain of the Virgin, on the east ern slope of Ophel, and distant some goo yards from the pool of Siloam, with which it is con nected by an ancient tunnel. (Comp. Robinson's Researches, i. 352, 5t2-514, Thomson, The Land and the Book, vol. ii. pp. 494-523, 526-7.) 3. The name of one of the rivers of Paradise. (See PARADISE.)