(4) Upon whom the tower in Siloam fell.--Here, again, we have a reference to an incident not recorded elsewhere. It was clearly one that had impressed the minds of men with horror, as a special judgment. At or near to Siloam, the modern Birket-Silwan, is a swimming-pool, or tank (John 9:7), where the valley of Tyrop?on opens into that of the Kedron. It was supplied through artificial conduits, and appears to have been one of a series of pools so fed. It is not unlikely, connected as Siloam thus was with the water-system of the city, that the tower in question was part of the works which Pilate had planned, and partly executed, for the construction of an aqueduct, and for which he appropriated part of the Corban or sacred treasure of the Temple, and if so, the popular excitement which this measure caused (see Note on Matthew 27:2) might well lead men to look on its fall as an instance of a divine judgment on what they regarded as an act of sacrilege.

Verse 4. - Or those eighteen, upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? "You remember," goes on the Master, "the catastrophe of the fall of the tower in Siloam; the poor sufferers who were crushed there were not specially wicked men." The Lord used these occasions, we see, for something more than the great national lesson. Men are too ready, now as then, to give way to the unloving error of looking at individual misfortune as the consequence of individual crime. Such human uncharitable judgments the Lord bitterly condemns. Ewald's conjecture in connection with this Siloam accident is ingenious. He supposes that the rigid Jews looked on the catastrophe as a retribution because the workmen who perished were paid by Pilate out of the sacred corban money (see Josephus, 'Bell. Jud.,' 2:09. 4). The works were no doubt in connection with the aqueduct to the Pool of Siloam.

13:1-5 Mention was made to Christ of the death of some Galileans. This tragical story is briefly related here, and is not met with in any historians. In Christ's reply he spoke of another event, which, like it, gave an instance of people taken away by sudden death. Towers, that are built for safety, often prove to be men's destruction. He cautioned his hearers not to blame great sufferers, as if they were therefore to be accounted great sinners. As no place or employment can secure from the stroke of death, we should consider the sudden removals of others as warnings to ourselves. On these accounts Christ founded a call to repentance. The same Jesus that bids us repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, bids us repent, for otherwise we shall perish.Or those eighteen,.... Men; the Persic version reads, "those twelve"; but all copies, and other versions, agree in this number:

upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them; there was a pool near Jerusalem, called the Pool of Siloam, John 9:7 near, or over which, was a tower built, which fell down and killed eighteen men; very likely as they were purifying themselves in the pool, and so was a case very much like the other, and might be a very late one: and this Christ the rather observes, and puts them in mind of, that they might see that not Galileans only, whom they had in great contempt, but even inhabitants of Jerusalem, died violent deaths, and came to untimely ends; and yet, as not in the former case, so neither in this was it to be concluded from hence, that they were sinners of a greater size, or their state worse than that of other men:

think ye that they were sinners; or debtors; for as sins are called debts, Matthew 6:12 so sinners are called debtors:

above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? there might be, and doubtless there were, as great, or greater sinners, in that holy city, and among such that made great pretensions to religion and holiness, as they were.