Sillick, John A., a minister of the Methodist Epis- copal Church, was born in Saratoga, N. Y., l\Iay 21, 1805, and was converted at the age of twelve. Falhng away, lie was restored when about twenty-four. He then spent two years at Wilbrahara Academy, and about two years at the Wesleyan University. In 183-1 he joined the New York Conference, and remained in it until its divi- sion (1848), when he became a member of the New York East Conference. In 1854 he was transferred to the New York Conference, and continued etlective till 18(J1, when lie took a superannuated relation, and settled in York- ville, a suburb of New York city, where lie died July 10, 1865. He was kind and generous, a good preacher, prac- tical, e^itertaining, and instructive. See Minutes of A n- nuul Conferences, 1865, p. 73.
Sillon See Buikk.
Silnoy-Bog, a god mentioned in Slavic mythology who is believed to be the war-god of the ancient IJus- sians and Poles. He is represented as a warrior, heavily armed, and having the skulls of men and beasts scattered about at his feet. — Vollmer, Wurterb. d. Mythol. s. v.
Silo'ah, Silo'am, or Shilo'ah, a place in the vicinity of Jerusalem. We use, in l>art, the account given in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible.
I. Xcime. — This occurs in a different form both in the original and in tlie A. V.. as applied to water, in three ]>assages of Scripture, which we here arrange chronolog- ically.
1. " The Watkhs of Shiloaii"' (Heb. ^fey hash-Shi- lo'dch, riTC^Tj ip; Sept. ro 'i'dw/j Toi' 'EtiXioaiu v. r. St- \(jjdi.i ; Saailias, A in Selwdn ; Vulg. aquas Siloe),& certain soft-flowing stream employed by the propliet Isaiah (viii, 6) to point his comparison between the quiet confidence in Jehovah which he was urging on the people, and the overwhelming violence of the king of Assyria, for whose alliance thej^ were clamoring.
There is no reason to doubt that the waters in ques- tion were the same that are better known under their later name of Siloam — the only |)erennial spring of Jeru- salem. Objection has been taken to the fact that the " waters of Siloam" run with an irregular intermittent action, and therefore could hardly be appealed to as flowing "softl\-." But the testimony of careful inves- tigators (Robinson, Bib. Res. i, 341,2; Barclay, Ci/y of the Gi-eat King, p. 516) establishes the fact that the dis- turbance only takes place, at tlie oftenest, two or three times a day, say three to four hours out of the twenty-
four, the flow being "perfectly quiescent" during the rest of the time. In summer the disturbance only oc- curs once iu two or three days. Such interruptions to the quiet flow of the stream would therefore not inter- fere with the contrast enforced in the prophet's metaphor.
2. "The Pool OF Siloah" (Heb. Berekdth hash-^he'- lach, nb'^lil nzna ; Sept. Ko\vfij3))Srpa tmv kwciwi' v. r. Tuiv BtToi) ^iXuidfi ; Vulg. Piscina Siloe), a locality on the southern wall of the city near " the king's garden" (Neh. iii, 15). This was possibly a corrupt form of the name which is first presented as Shiloach, then as Sikiam, and is now Selwdn. The rwot of them all is doubtless nb w', shaldch, " to send." The meaning of Shelach, taken as Hebrew, is "dart." This cannot be a name given to the stream on account of its swiftness, Ijecause it is not now, nor was it in the days of Isaiah, anything but a very soft and gentle stream (Isa. viii, 6). It is probably an accommodation to the popular mouth, of the same nature as that exemplilied in the name Dart, which is now borne by more than one river in England, and which has nothing whatever to do with swiftness, but is merely a corruiition of the ancient word, which also appears in the various forms of Derwent, Darent, and perhaps Trent.
3, "The Pool of Siloam" ()) KoXv/jftlj^bpa tov 2t- Xwdfi, which the evangelist immediately explains by adding, "which is interpreted Sent," o tpni^rtiitrai X-izt- oraXnEj'oe, evidently deriving it from nVo ), a bathing- place in the vicinity of Jerusalem to which our Lord sent the blind man to wash in order to the recovery of his sight (John ix, 7-11).
In this connection we may also refer to the only oth- er Biblical occurrence of the name by " the Tower in Siloam" (6 irrpyog ti> Tiji 'S.iXojn^i, Vulg. tun-is in Si- loe), to which Jesus alluded as the cause of a great ca- lamity to certain Jews ( Luke xiii, 4). There is no good reason to suppose a different jilace to be here meant; but some structure adjoining the fountain is doubtless designated. There were fortifications hard liy. for of Jotham we read, "on the wall of Ophel he built much" (2 Chron. xxvii, 3); and of Manasseh that "he com- passed about Ophel" (xxxiii, 14); and, in connection with Ophel, there is mention made of "a tower that li- eth out" (Neh. iii, 26) ; and there is no unlikelihood in connecting this projecting tower with the tower in Si- loam, while one may be almost excused for the conject- ure that lis projection was the cause of its ultimateyi;//.
The above change in the Masoretic punctuation [)er- haps indicates merely a change in the pronunciation or in the spelling of the word, sometime during the three centuries between Isaiah and Nehemiah. liabbinical writers, and, following them, Jewish travellers, both an- cient and modern, from Benjamin of Tudela to Schwarz, retain the earlier Shiloach in preference to the later She- lach. The rabbins give it with the article, as in the Bible (mbirn, Dach, Codex Talmidicus, p. 367). The Sept. gives HiXwdfi in Isaiah; but in Nehemiah ko- Xvnl-^ij^pct Twv KdiSiwi', the pool of the sheep -skins, or " fleece-pool ;" perhaps because, in their day, it was used for washing the fleeces of the victims. In Tal- mudical Hebrew Shelach signifies "a skin" (Levi, IJn- gna Sacra) ; and the Alexandrian translators attached this meaning to it, they and the earlier rabhins consid- ering Neheniiah's Shelach as a different pool from Si- loam, probably tlie same as Bethesda, by the shee[i-gate (.John v, 2), the wpojiariKr] KoXvpfii'i^pa of Eusebius, the probatica piscina of Jerome. If so, then it is Be- thesda, and not Siloam, that is mentioned by Nehemiah. We may observe that the Targum of Jonathan, the Pcshito, and the Arabic versions of 1 Kings i, 33 rea<l Shiloah for tlie (lihon of the Hebrew. The Vulg. has uniformly, both in the Old and the New Test., *S//oe ; in the Old calling it piscina, and in the New nafatoria. The Latin fathers, led by the Vulg., have always Siloe ; the old pilgrims, who knew nothing but the Vulg., Silue or