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Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary

CONDUIT*

Water tunnel or channel. In the OT the Hebrew word can mean rivulets in the ground made by rain (Jb 38:25, “channel”; Ez 31:4, “stream”) or a simple trench such as Elijah dug around the altar in his encounter with the prophets of Baal, a Canaanite fertility god (1 Kgs 18:31-38).

A water tunnel was constructed during King Hezekiah’s reign to bring water from the Gihon Spring, once located outside the walls of Jerusalem, to inside the city proper (“pool,” 2 Kgs 18:17; 20:20; Neh 2:14; Is 7:3; 22:9-11; 36:2). The mouth of the spring was sealed and its water diverted into the city through the conduit to keep Israel’s enemies from using the spring during a siege of the city. That tunnel expanded a tunnel begun by earlier inhabitants of the city, the Jebusites. David and his men may have entered Jerusalem through that first tunnel to overthrow the Jebusites (2 Sm 5:8).