Easton's Bible Dictionary (1897)
The rendering of a Hebrew word bor, which means a receptacle for water conveyed to it; distinguished from beer, which denotes a place where water rises on the spot (Jer. 2:13; Prov. 5:15; Isa. 36:16), a fountain. Cisterns are frequently mentioned in Scripture. The scarcity of springs in Palestine made it necessary to collect rain-water in reservoirs and cisterns (Num. 21:22). (See WELL.) Empty cisterns were sometimes used as prisons (Jer. 38:6;
Lam. 3:53; Ps. 40:2; 69:15). The “pit” into which Joseph was cast (Gen. 37:24) was a beer or dry well. There are numerous remains of ancient cisterns in all parts of Palestine.
Smith's Bible Dictionary (1863)
a receptacle for water, either conducted from an external spring or proceeding from rain-fall. The dryness of the summer months and the scarcity of springs in Judea made cisterns a necessity, and they are frequent throughout the whole of Syria and Palestine. On the long-forgotten way from Jericho to Bethel, “broken cisterns” of high antiquity are found at regular intervals. Jerusalem depends mainly for water upon its cisterns, of which almost
every private house possesses one or more, excavated in the rock on which the city is built. The cisterns have usually a round opening at the top, sometimes built up with stonework above and furnished with a curb and a wheel for a bucket. (Ecclesiastes 12:6) Empty cisterns were sometimes used as prisons and places of confinement. Joseph was cast into a “pit,” (Genesis 37:22) as was Jeremiah. (Jeremiah 38:6)
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible (1898) & Schaff's Bible Dictionary
CIS'TERN . The face of the country and the rarity of rain between May and September made cisterns indispensable in Judgea. They were mostly private property. Num 21:22. Some were formed by merely excavating the earth; others were covered reservoirs, into which the water was conducted; and others still were lined with wood or cement, or hewn out of the rock with great labor and ornamented with much skill. When the pits were empty there was a
tenacious mire at the bottom, and they were used as the places of the most cruel punishments. It was into such a pit, probably, that Joseph and Jeremiah were cast. Gen 37:22; Jer 38:6. Large cisterns are now found in Palestine at intervals of 15 or 20 miles. One of them is described by a modern traveller to be 660 feet long by 270 broad. These cisterns were the chief dependence of the people for water; hence the force of the allusion. Jer 2:13.
The city of Jerusalem was remarkably well supplied with water, so that during her many sieges her inhabitants never suffered from thirst. See Conduit. Various illustrations from the cistern are given in Scripture. A wheel was used to draw up the bucket, and "the wheel broken at the cistern," in Eccl 12:6, denotes the breaking up of the vital powers of the human body. An exhortation to due restraint in pleasure is indicated by "Drink waters out of
thine own cistern." Prov 5:15.