Archaeologists Excavate Jerusalem Cave and Tunnel Network

This, along with the cave's apparent connection to a structure dated to the First Temple period (10th to 6th centuries BCE) above it which featured water channels for directing water into the cave, told the archaeologists that they were actually exploring what was originally an ancient water cistern. Given the location, the water cistern, not an atypical feature of ancient Jerusalem during the centuries when Jerusalem was ruled by Israelite and Judahite kings before Babylonian captivity in 586 BC, may have been used by Jerusalem's royalty for collecting and storing water...

Excavators found that the Herodian Period walls related to yet another key feature of the cave or cistern -- a system of tunnels carved from the rock, large enough to accommodate the passage of individuals from one location to another...

The project archaeologists suggest that the tunnels and shafts may possibly have been made and used by inhabitants of the city hiding or protecting themselves from the Roman siege of Jerusalem during the height of the First Jewish Revolt, an event well documented by the Jewish historian Josephus in his writing, The Jewish War...

The Ophel excavations, of which the cave excavation is a part, have revealed finds dated to the Second Temple, Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods, and what Mazar and others suggest may be the remains of structures attributed to builders during the period of King Solomon in the 10th century BCE. Past remains have included a section of a massive wall of large, well-dressed stones 70 meters long and 6 meters high. Also uncovered with the wall was a structure interpreted as an inner gatehouse, a royal structure adjacent to the gatehouse, and a section of a corner tower 8 meters long and 6 meters high, built of carved stones.

And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, 42 saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43 For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side 44 and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” Luke 19:41-44

And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. 28 But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ 30 Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ 31 For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?” Luke 23:27-31

Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place. Matthew 24:34

The events leading up to the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD were some of the most horrific events ever to befall a city in any time or generation.

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