FULLER'S FIELD (Dfl rrt, ; Sept. aypOs 7-60 •yvag)ecos). This place is three times mentioned in the Bible, and always in the same connection. The conduit of the upper pool which is in the high way of the fuller's field' (2 Kings xviii. 17 • Is.
vii. 3 ; xxxvi. 2). Its position is not defined ; bin we can gather that it was on one of the leading roads, to which it also ga•.-e its name ; that it was on the ` conduit ' or canal connected with the 'upper pool,' and that it was near Jerusalem. The heralds of the king of Assyria spake in the hearing of the people on the wall from the highway of the Fuller's Field' (2 Kings xviii. 17, 26). There can be I little doubt that the upper pool' is the cistern now called Birket el-Mamilla, at the head of the valley of Hinnom, a short distance west of the Vafa gate (Handbook for S. and P., 99, 136.) Hezekiah conveyed the waters from it by a subterranean aque duct to the west side of the city of David (2 Chron. xxxii. 3o). The natural course of this aqueduct was along the ancient road to the western gate beside the castle ; and this was the road by which the Assyrian ambassadors would doubtless ap proach the city, coming as they did from Lachish, The position of the Fuller's Field is thus indicated.
It lay on the side of the highway west of the city. The fullers' occupation required an abundant sup ply of water, and an open space for drying the clothes. We may, therefore, conclude that their ` field' was beside, or at least not far distant from the upper pool.
Dr. Williams, and some others who follow him, affirm that the Fuller's Field, and the fountain or pool of Gihon, were somewhere on the plateau north of the Damascus gate, and near, if not in the upper part of the valley of the Kidron. But this view is opposed to Chron. xxxii. 3o ; and no amount of reasoning can get over the plain state. mcnt of that passage, that Hezekiah stopped the upper outflow (or spring. N'S1U) of Gihon, and brought it straig,ht a'own to Me west sia'e of the city of Davia'.' Now this would be a physical impossi bility if we place Gihon elsewhere than on the west side of the city. (See, however, William's Holy City, ii. 471, sq.; Smith's Diet. of the Bible, s. v. Gihon and 7entsalem ; Earclay's City of the Great Aing.)—J. L. P.