A few years ago the Rev. F. W. Birch, arguing on the supposition that it was the city on Ophel which Joab captured for David, suggested that he found his way into it by the secret tunnels and shafts from the Virgin’s Fountain. That Ophel might be captured by surprise in that way seems likely; only it was not Ophel that Joab had to capture, but Akra. The Lower City had all been taken, except that the Akra held out still. If its garrison obtained water from the _Hammam esh Shefa_, may not Joab have effected an entrance from _that_ spring? He did not have to _get up to_ a “_gutter_,” nor yet to a “water course,” but to “reach them by the aqueduct” (_B’Tzinnor_).
_David’s flight and exile; the Spies._--David at first dwelt in the stronghold (the Akra fort), but we afterwards find references to a house which he had and which was on the Ophel slope. We have had evidence of this in the Book of Nehemiah, and we find confirmation in such passages as 1 Kings viii. 1-6, where the ark is _brought up_ out of the City of David into the temple (and 2 Sam. xxiv. 18; 1 Kings ix. 24). When David decided to flee from Jerusalem because of the rebellion of Absalom, he would go down the stairs of the City of David, pass out by the Gate between two walls, and go through his own garden grounds; and then, as we are told, he passed over the Kedron, ascended Olivet, and went down to Jericho and over the Jordan.
But he left friends behind him at his house, and it was arranged that two sons of the priests should act as spies and bring him news (2 Sam. xvii.). They waited outside the city, at En Rogel, and a wench went and told them. En Rogel is now identified with the Virgin’s Fountain; and it would not be a bad place for the spies to hide in, seeing that its passages were dark, and communicated both with the hill and the valley. The maid servant, descending the staircases from above, might take a pitcher or a bucket to draw water, and so escape suspicion; the spies below on receiving the message, could hie away over the mountain to the Jericho road and Jordan.
The evidence that the Virgin’s Fountain is En Rogel will increase upon us as we proceed; but one reason may be stated here. En Rogel is etymologically the Spring of the Fuller, and was so called, no doubt, because fullers washed clothes at the place; but it may also be made to mean the Spring of the Steps, because fullers trode the clothes with their feet, and hence got their name (from _Regel_, the _foot_, and metaphorically a _step_). The Virgin’s Fountain is now called by the Arabs, _Ain Umm ed Deraj_, “Fountain of the Mother of Steps,” a designation commonly supposed to refer to the two flights of steps which lead down to it, but which may be derived by tradition from “En Rogel.” The steps were not always there. The explorers of Jerusalem say, “The pool seems originally to have been visible in the face of a cliff, and the vault and steps are modern. Possibly the original exit of the water was down the Kedron Valley.”