4. The Targumist on Ecclesiastes 2:5, noted.

It is an even lay, whether the Targumist on this place deal more cunningly or more obscurely. The passage is about the king's gardens: and he, "I planted me all trees of spice, which the goblins and the demons brought me out of India": and then goes on, and the bound of it was from the wall that is in Jerusalem, by the bank of the waters of Siloam. Render by the bank for illustration's sake; for to the bank (as the Latin interpreter renders it), although it might signify the same, yet it may also signify something else, and so become a difficulty not to be resolved. Besides, it is to be observed, that it is upon, or above, not unto.

The meaning of the Targumist seemeth to be this; that the king's gardens were bounded in this manner. They extended from the descent of Zion, until they came over-against Shelahh, or the lower pool; even to the beginning of the wall of the city, which is in Jerusalem: which wall runs near to the bank of the waters of Siloam.

That passage in Nehemiah 3:15 illustrates this; "the gate of the fountain repaired Shallum, and the wall of the pool of Shelahh by the king's gardens." 'The gate of the fountain,' whether that was called so from the pool of Siloam, or otherwise, was at some distance from the king's pool, Nehemiah 2:14: and by the wall of the city, that ran between the gate and the pool, there was a rivulet, drawn from the fountain into that pool.

The words of the Targumist, therefore, are to be so rendered as that the king's gardens may not be said to extend themselves to the bank of the waters of Siloam; but that the wall of Jerusalem ran along by the bank of those waters, and the garden to the first part of that wall. So that he does not call the lower pool by the name of Siloahh; but by 'the waters of Siloahh' he understands the stream that came from the fountain and fell into that pool.