SILK

went to Athens, Silas and Timothy were left behind, perhaps to bring the latest news (rem Thessalonica (in case it was possible for the Apostle to return thither), with injunctions to follow at once; and this they probably did. But they seem to have been sent back on a mission to Macedonia (1 Th S^: Paul was 'left behind at Athens alone'), Timothy to Thessalonica, Silas perhaps to Philippi; they rejoined Paul at Corinth, and are associated with him in the letters, probably written thence, to the Thessalonians. Here Silas dis-appears from the Pauline history. But there is no reason for suspecting a defection lilie that of Mark; the cordial reference to his former preaching in 2 Co 1" (written on the Third Journey) contradicts this. We afterwards find him attending on St. Peter, acting as bearer and perhaps scribe of his First Epistle (1 P 5'*); for there is no reason to suppose that the Petrine Mark and Silvanus were other than those connected with St. Paul. Whether this attendance was before or after the death of St. Paul depends on the date we give to 1 Peter; see a full Excursus in Dr. Bigg's edition of that Epistle. A. J. Maclean.

SILK.— See Dhess, 1.

SILLA. — The servants of king Joash smote him 'at the house of Millo [read rather ' at Beth-Millo '] on the way that goeth down to Silla' (2K 12»). Where or what Silla may have been there is nothing to show. The LXX reads Gaalla or Gaallad. E. A. S. Macalistek.

SILOAH ('waters of Shiloah,' Is 8°; 'pool of Siloah' [RV Shelah], Neh S'^; 'tower in Siloam,' Lk 13<; 'pool of Siloam,' Jn 9'; probably identical with the ' king's pool ' of Neh 2'*). — The name survives to-day in Silwin, the name of the village which occupies the steep E. slopes of the valley of the Kldron from opposite the ' Virgin's Fount' (Gihon) to near Blr Byyub (En-rogel). The village consists of a northern, older section inhabited by Moslem fellahln, and a small, southern quarter belonging to immigrant Yemenite Jews from Arabia, while still farther down the valley is an isolated row of huts allotted to the lepers. All the site now occupied by the fellahln has been built upon in ancient times, and the whole area is riddled with cave dwellings, cisterns, rock-cut steps, and ancient tombs. Some of the caves have apparently served the purposes successively of tombs and chapels, while to-day they are dwellings or store-houses. It may be considered as certain that in NT times, and probably for some centuries earlier, there was a considerable village in this situation. The 'tower' which fell (Lk 13') may have been a building similar to many to-day perched on the edge of the pre-cipitous rocks above the Kldron. Immediately across the valley, to the N. of Siloam, in the very bed of the Kidron, is the Virgin's Fount (see Gihon), the original spring of Jerusalem. In early times the water of this spring, alter probably filling a pool here, ran down the valley; at a later period the surplus supply was conducted by an aqueduct built along the N. side of the valley (partially excavate'd near its W. end), to a spot where is situated to-day a dry pool known as Birket el-Hamra. Remains of this aqueduct have been traced. As the water supply was, under this arrange-ment, vulnerable to attack, king Hezekiah 'stopped the upper watercourse of Gihon and brought it straight down to the west side of the city of David' (2 Ch 32»»; cf. 32', 2 K 20™). The work thus described is the famous Siloam tunnel, 1700 feet long. This runs in an extraordinarily serpentine course from the Virgin's Fount, and opens in the Tyropoeon Valley under the name ' Ain Silw&n, or the 'Spring of Siloam,' to pour its waters into the pool known as Birket es-SilwS/n, or the ' Pool of Siloam." These may have been ' the waters of Shiloah that go softly,' a great contrast to the mighty Euphrates (Is 8"- '). Close to the lower opening of the tunnel was found, in 1880, a Heb. inscription giving an account of the completion of the work. Although

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SIMEON

undated, there is every reason to believe that this is a contemporary account of Hezekiah's work, and if so, it is the oldest Heb. inscription known.

The original Pool of Siloam, of which the present Birket occupies but a part, was excavated by Dr. F. Bliss, and was shown to have been a rock-cut reservoir 71 feet N. to S. by 75 feet E. to W.; and just outside its W. edge was found a flight of ancient rock-cut steps, probably those mentioned in Neh 3". A covered arcade, 12 feet wide, had been built, probably about NT times, round the four sides of the pool, and a division ran across the centre to separate the sexes when bathing. Such was probably the condition of the pool at the time of the events of Jn 9'. The surplus water of the pool leaves by a sluice at its S. end, and traverses a rock-cut channel to reach the gardens of the Siloam villagers. S. of the Birket es-Silwan is a walled-in area which in recent times was a kind of cesspool for the city, the sewage coming down the Tyropoeon Valley (now diverted to its proper sewer again) being there stopped by a great dam across the valley. On this dam, at one period, ran the city wall, and Dr. Bliss proved by excavations that it was supported by buttresses of great strength. The area shut off by this dam is the so-called 'lower Pool of Siloam ' or Birket el-Hamra, and may have been used at one time to store surplus waters from the upper pool. Probably it was the ' reservoir ' (RV) or ' ditch ' ( AV) ' between the two walls, for the water of the old pool ' (Is 22"), that is, the reservoir to which the water from the 'old pool' at Gihon was conducted by the earlier aqueduct referred to above, while the dam itself is with some probability considered to be the 'wall of the pool of Siloah by the 'king's garden' (Neh 3"). The water of the ' Ain Silwdn is naturally, like that of its source (Gihon), brackish and impregnated with sewage; it also runs intermittently.

E. W. G. Mastekman.

SILVANUS.— See Silas.

SILVER. — See Mining and Metals.

SILVERLING.— Only Is T^', where the original reads 'a thousand of silver,' the denomination to be supplied being 'shekels' (see Money, p. 628i>).

SIMEON (Lk3»», Ac 13' IS" Symeon).— 1. The second son of Jacob and Leah (Gn 29=^ [J]). By R he, together with Levi, is closely related to Dinah, she being a full sister (cf. 34). From Gn 30'" (E) we learn that he had five full brothers, but we are not told how many other sisters or half-sisters he had. J (Gn 37=') speaks of 'air Jacob's 'daughters,' but their names are nowhere recorded (cf. 46' [P]). J, who is specially inclined to etymologizing (see RVm of Gn 3^" 4i- ^ 5™ ll^ 16"- " etc.), connects the name, as in the case of Reuben, with Jacob's 'hatred' of Leah: 'Because Jahweh hath heard (shdma') that I am hated, etc., and she called his name Shim' dn ' (29»»). The meaning of the name is unknown, but it has been connected by many scholars with the Arabic sim', the hybrid offspring of the hyaena and the female wolf. This word sim' appears as a tribal name among the Arabs, and it is well knovm that numerous tribal names are those of animals; Leah and Rachel probably belong to this class. In such cases the names probably point to the totem worship of the ancestors. If the name appears, as is supposed by some scholars, in the inscriptions of Esarhaddon, it may be of importance in connexion with the history of the tribe, but no light is derived from the form as to its meaning.

In the Blessing of Jacob (Gn 49) Simeon is coupled with Levi (wh. see) as sharing in the curse of Jacob and in the consequent dispersion of the tribe among the other tribes of Israel. This is an indication that at the time the 'Blessing' was composed, the tribe was prac-tically dissolved. P's census of the tribes ascribes 69,300 fighting men to Simeon at Sinai (Nu l^'). At Moab there were only 22,200 (26")— another indication