The Mystery of the “Gutter” in the City of David

There are two descriptions in the Bible of Jerusalem’s conquest by David. The first, in Samuel, mentions the blind and the lame, who according to the Jebusites would stop David. The word tzinnor (“gutter”) also appears in connection with the conquest; however, its meaning remains a mystery. The second description, in Chronicles, mentions Joab the son of Zeruiah leading David’s army, but does not mention the blind, the lame or the tzinnor.

Scholars and commentators have pondered these difficult questions. One opinion sees the blind and the lame as part of a magic ceremony intended to thwart the attempted conquest by King David. Others propose that the Jebusites marched the blind and the lame on the walls, in view of David’s soldiers, out of arrogance and certainty that these were all that was needed to protect the well-fortified city.

Until recent years the tzinnor was believed to be Warren’s Shaft – a rock-hewn cistern discovered in the city of David in 1867 by Charles Warren, through which David’s soldiers had ostensibly climbed into the city. But the archaeological excavations by Prof. Ronny Reich and Eli Shukron in recent years have shown that this shaft was not yet known at the time of David, and so this theory has been set aside. Nevertheless, the tzinnor may have been another concealed water system through which David’s men entered Jerusalem.