King David's Wells

Along the road leading out of Bethlehem three great cisterns, excavated in the rock, are known as ' David's Wells '. Tradition identify these wells with " the cistern that is in Bethlehem at the gate" from which David longed to drink during a battle with the Philistines. The biblical 2 Samuel 23:1-17 records the story of David who was camped nearby Bethlehem at a time when it was held as a Philistine garrison. David looked to the town of Bethlehem and exclaimed: "O that someone would give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem that is by the gate!"

In 1895 a mosaic pavement of a church of the 5th or 6th century, with a Greek inscription was discovered east of these cisterns. The church rested on a vast necropolis. The cemetery was Christian as proved by the inscriptions. The cisterns are located in Ras Eftais, an eastern sector of Bethlehem. The Catholic Action Club lies on the site of one of the cisterns.

The three great cisterns known as David's Wells