The Pool of Siloam was a spring-fed pool where Jewish pilgrims washed before going up to the temple in the time of Jesus.  Water from the pool, a sign of life,  was poured on the altar by priests during the days Feast of Tabernacles, a popular Jewish autumn feast. Toward the end of that feast Jesus gave sight to the man born blind and told him to wash in the pool.  

Excavations uncovered the pool in 2004.

The long discourses of Jesus in the temple from John’s Gospel (Jn 7:1- 10:19:21), which we read these days of Lent, should be read in the light of this feast and the miracle he worked then. 

The feast, originally an agricultural feast, became a feast that recalled the journey of the Jews through the desert when they lived in tents and were tested by its harsh conditions.  

They were children of Abraham and Moses. Jesus calls his hearers, then and now, to accept him as greater than Abraham and Moses. He is God’s Son. He is the living Water who brings life, the Bread that brings life forever. Lifted up in the desert, he draws all to himself. He calls from partial faith to full faith. Even those who put him to death, he calls to forgiveness.