THE mention of the “quarry” leads me to make a few observations on the rock from which the great Corner Stone and the innumerable superstructural stones of the typical Temple were “hewn”—and the “hole of the pit whence they were digged.” Before doing so, however, I may briefly mention two or three other points connected with Temple Hill which came under my observation. Having completed an examination of the Eben Shatiyeh, the “Stone of Foundation”—concerning the sacredness of which Jews, Moslems, and Christians (as Conder points out) are entirely agreed—I inspected the cave in the Sakhrāh Rock, to which allusion has already been made. This cave was possibly Araunah’s granary, though whether it is artificial or natural cannot easily now be determined. Subsequently I obtained access, though not without considerable personal inconvenience, to the enormous water reservoirs which abound in the heart of Moriah, immediately below the site of the ancient Temple. The entrance was narrow, rugged, and precipitous. The descent into these vast water caverns, however, having been effected, I was well rewarded by the interesting results.
But to come to the deeply interesting inspection of the Royal Quarries made on the afternoon of the day I visited the Haram. Until recent years the vast subterranean spaces in the Bezetha Hill, known as the Royal Quarries, or the Cotton Grotto, were merely believed to have an existence. No one, possibly, had entered them for ages. To Dr Barclay, whose practical interest in the antiquities of Jerusalem prompted him in 1852, at considerable personal risk, to explore these abodes of deathlike silence and Cimmerian darkness, we owe our knowledge of this undoubted relic of the ancient city. The small low opening by which access is now gained is found at the foot of the rock on which stands the city wall, some one hundred and fifty yards east of the Bab-al-Ahum, or Damascus gate, exactly opposite the so-called Grotto of Jeremiah. A large mound of rubbish and ruins lies in front of the opening, and as a stranger scrambles over this and stoops down to creep into the contracted entrance, he has not the faintest idea of the vastness of the cavernous world into which he is about to step. Yet once inside, with a trusty guide, with a fair amount of courage and perseverance, together with a good supply of lighted torches or candles, he may count on a rich reward. Two or three hours will be found not too much time for the examination of this veritable “hole of the pit,” whose inexhaustible beds of snow-white limestone furnished the hewers and squarers of the massive stones required by King Solomon with what must have been literally miles of masonry.
A few rude steps presently lead down to a lower level. The ramifications of the mammoth cavern became truly perplexing. Roughly cut tunnels ran in various directions, while huge pillars of unhewn stone appeared in different places, evidently left by the workmen to support the roof upon which, far above, stood the buildings erected on Bezetha. To quote the accurate language of Mr King:—
“The stone walls, rocky roof, and rugged archways, prostrate blocks, earthen mounds, sharp precipices, rock-cut steps leading to dark amphitheatres . . . form a spectacle never to be forgotten.”
It is the opinion of some that these dark quarries extend not only generally under the Bezetha Hill, but even as far as Moriah itself. It ought to be noticed, remarks the observant author of “Recent Discoveries,” that the Royal Quarries and the Temple Hill belong to the same ridge of rock, and that both are situated immediately to the east of the deep valley that runs north and south through the centre of ancient Jerusalem. The excavations extend towards the southeast, and closely approach the rock-cut tunnels lately discovered under the Latin Convent which stands in the Street of the Palace—the Via Dolorosa of pilgrims. The tunnels run close to the northern wall of the Haram; so that there seems nothing extravagant in the idea, entertained by several competent authorities, that in ancient days the Royal Quarries were connected by subterranean passages with the Temple Hill. Thus it is possible that the blocks of stone which were chosen, separated, fashioned, and perfected in the darkness of that subterranean world were borne along the dark, weary, winding passages, until they emerged into full light on Moriah, and found their abiding places in the Holy House without the noise of a hammer being heard, or the sound of any workman’s tool besides.
“And the House when it was building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither; so that there was neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron, heard in the House while it was building” (I. Kings, vi. 7)
and that was during the space of seven years (verse 38).
The reader will guess with what absorbing interest I gazed upon my surroundings while I stood in the recesses of this “hole of the pit”—in these “lower parts of the earth.” Beneath my feet and scattered along the countless passages were thousands of tons of the chippings and waste of the “great stones,” the “costly stones,” the “hewed stones,” which “Solomon’s builders and Hiram’s builders” did “hew” and “square” (I. Kings v. 17, 18). Fit emblems these, surely, of the dross and flesh from which the “living stones” of the “Spiritual House” (I. Peter ii. 5) are by Jehovah’s grace and providence delivered in the school of discipline (Cor. xii. 7-10; I. Pet. i. 6, 7). Lying here and there were huge pieces of stone, fair to look upon, and apparently well suited for service, but left!—while in the solid walls of the Royal Quarry were occasionally to be seen blocks of partly-detached stones—upon which the workmen had spent no small labour—left adhering to the native mass. Some of these latter were deeply incised—smoothed on five out of their six sides, but not separated on that sixth side. There, for ages, had those stones remained in the dark and the silence of the mystic chamber. To my own soul, when the faint gleam of my candle fell upon their faces as they hung in their positions of rejection, they seemed to symbolise the sad case of many a fair professor in the visible Church. The outward fashion is that of a Temple stone, an accepted stone, but then there is lacking that experience of separation from the old stock—nature’s own corrupt condition—and the subsequent fashioning by the hand of the Great Master-builder for a place in the Jerusalem above. Alas! how many are satisfied with mere “concision”—a little cutting into the flesh here and there, with a mere outward conformity to Christ, while there is a secret clinging, as in the case of the yet attached stone in the Royal Quarries, to the first, the old creation state.—Rev. James Ormiston’s “Stones that Speak.”