John Ironside

“The Pharisees were still the dominant party in Jerusalem, while the king was openly a Sadducee. He detested the strictness of the separatists and publicly defied them on one memorable occasion by pouring the water from the Pool of Siloam upon the ground instead of the altar, at the feast of tabernacles. This was a ceremony prescribed, not in the law, but the ritual, and referred to by our Lord in John 7:37, 38. A terrible uproar was precipitated by what the Pharisees regarded as a sacrilegious act, and Alexander called in his foreign troops to quell the riot. So fearful was the disturbance, that ere it was put down six thousand people had been slain. But this was only the beginning. Rebellion and insurrection broke out everywhere, and before peace was established some fifty thousand persons were killed.””