1. Genesis 2:13. (See EDEN.) The Septuagint, Jeremiah 2:18, identify it with the Nile; but the writer of Genesis, so well acquainted with Egypt, would never have connected the Nile with the Euphrates. The Cush which the Gihon "compassed" was the Asiatic not the African Cush (Genesis 10:7-10); The Septuagint being Alexandrian Jews, to glorify their adopted country, made the Nile one of the rivers of paradise.
        2. A fountain near Jerusalem, where Solomon was anointed king (1 Kings 1:33; 1 Kings 1:38; 1 Kings 1:45). The "down" in going and "up" in returning show it was below the city. Manasseh built a wall outside the city of David from the W. of Gihon in the valley (nachal), "wady", or "torrent", the word employed for the valley of Kedron or Jehoshaphat E. of Jerusalem; ge being employed for the valley of Hinnom S.W. of Jerusalem) to the entrance of the fish gate." Hezekiah stopped its upper source, at some distance off, at a higher level (2 Chronicles 32:30), and "brought it straight down to the W. side of the city of David" (2 Chronicles 33:14). The Targum of Jonathan, Arable and Syriac, has Siloam for Gihon in 1 Kings 1. A wall from W. of Gihon to the fish gate (near the Jaffa gate, Jerome) would be the course of a wall enclosing the city of David (2 Chronicles 33:14).
        An aqueduct discovered lately (1872) runs from near the Damascus gate, on the Bezetha hill, to the souterrain at the convent of the Sisters of Zion. It probably brought the water from the pool N. of the tombs of the kings (probably the "upper pool," 2 Kings 18:17; Isaiah 7:3; Isaiah 36:2, and "upper watercourse of Gihon" stopped by Hezekiah) to the pool of Bethesda. Siloam was the lower Gihon. It is suggested that the city of David was on the eastern hill, so Hezekiah by bringing it W. of the city of David brought it within the city, and so out of the enemy's reach. Psalm 48:2 confirms the view that mount Zion was to the N. of Moriah, the temple hill: "the joy of the whole earth is mount Zion, on the sides of the N. the city of the great Kine."