Luke 13:4

4-5. tower in Siloam--probably one of the towers of the city wall, near the pool of Siloam. Of its fall nothing is known.

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown, 1871 · public domain

Verse 4. Or those eighteen. Jesus himself adds another similar case, to warn them --a case which had probably occurred not long before, and which it is likely they judged in the same manner.

Upon whom the tower in Siloam fell. The name Siloah or Siloam is found only three times in the Bible as applied to water--once in Is 8:6, who speaks of it as running water; once as a pool near to the king's garden, in Neh 3:15; and once as a pool, in the account of the Saviour's healing the man born blind, in Jn 9:7-11. Josephus mentions the fountain of Siloam frequently as situated at the mouth of the Valley of Tyropoeon, or the Valley of Cheese-mongers, where the fountain long indicated as that fountain is still found. It is on the south side of Mount Moriah, and between that and the Valley of Jehoshaphat. The water at present flows out of a small artificial basin under the cliff, and is received into a large reservoir 53 feet in length by 18 in breadth. The small upper basin or fountain excavated in the rock is merely the entrance, or rather the termination of a long and narrow subterranean passage beyond, by which the water comes from the Fountain of the Virgin. For what purpose the tower here referred to was erected is not known; nor is it known at what time the event here referred to occurred. It is probable that it was not far from the time when the Saviour made use of the illustration, for the manner in which he refers to it implies that it was fresh in the recollection of those to whom he spoke.

(1) "sinners above", or "debtors"

Albert Barnes, 1834 · public domain

Verse 4 The tower in Siloam - This tower was probably built over one of the porticoes near the pool, which is mentioned Joh 9:7. See also Neh 3:15. Debtors, οφειλεται, a Jewish phrase for sinners. Persons professing to be under the law are bound by the law to be obedient to all its precepts; those who obey not are reckoned debtors to the law, or rather to that Divine justice from which the law came. A different word is used when speaking of the Galileans: they are termed ἁμαρτωλοι, as this word is often used to signify heathens; see the notes on Luk 7:37; it is probably used here in nearly a similar sense. "Do ye who live in Jerusalem, and who consider your selves peculiarly attached to the law, and under the strongest obligations to obey it - do ye think that those Galileans were more heathenish than the rest of the Galileans, because they suffered such things? No. It was not on this account that they perished: both these cases exhibit a specimen of the manner in which ye shall all perish, if ye do not speedily repent, and turn to God."

Adam Clarke, 1831 · public domain