Hebrew word · H7975

שִׁלֹחַ

hashiloach

Shelah

The proper name of Jerusalem's water channel, related to šālaḥ, 'to send'. It means something like 'the sender' or 'the sent (water)', i.e. a conduit. It is the same place as Shelah/Shelaḥ in Neh 3:15 ('the pool of Shelah by the king's garden') and the Siloam (Silōam) of later Greek sources.

Appears 2 times in 2 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament.

What it means

§ Shelah = "sent"

a fountain just southeast of Jerusalem

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Isaiah 8:6

Range of meaning

The proper name of Jerusalem's water channel, related to šālaḥ, 'to send'. It means something like 'the sender' or 'the sent (water)', i.e. a conduit. It is the same place as Shelah/Shelaḥ in Neh 3:15 ('the pool of Shelah by the king's garden') and the Siloam (Silōam) of later Greek sources.

Against the English

English versions simply transliterate 'Shiloah'. That is correct, but the reader loses the meaning of the name and also what the place was: a modest man-made channel, not a river.

Used elsewhere in the period

Neh 3:15 places it beside the king's garden. In the Septuagint and the New Testament it becomes Silōam; John 9:7 explains the name as 'Sent'. Archaeologists have identified a channel running from the Gihon spring along the eastern slope of the City of David, with openings for watering terraces. It predates Hezekiah's famous tunnel of about 701 BC. The Aramaic Targum of Isaiah reads the verse as a rejection of 'the kingdom of the house of David, which leads them gently like the waters of Shiloah', so later Jewish readers already took the waters as a symbol.

Similar words

Where it appears

Nehemiah · 1

  1. Nehemiah 3:15 הַשֶּׁ֙לַח֙ <the> Shelah

    The Fountain Gate was repaired by Shallun son of Col-hozeh, ruler of the district of Mizpah. He rebuilt it, roofed it, and installed its doors, bolts, and bars. He also repaired the wall of the Pool of Shelah near the king’s garden, as far as the stairs that descend from the City of David.

Isaiah · 1

  1. Isaiah 8:6 הַשִּׁלֹ֔חַ <the> Shiloah

    “Because this people has rejected the gently flowing waters of Shiloah and rejoiced in Rezin and the son of Remaliah,

    Here: The channel that carried water from the Gihon spring along the slope of the City of David. The name comes from šālaḥ, 'to send', so the water is water that is 'sent' or channelled.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.