Boyd’s Bible Dictionary:
(chest). Common and necessary in the East. Sometimes synonymous with “wells” (Num. 21:22), and “pits” (Gen. 37:22; 2 Sam. 17.18; Eccl. 12:6; Jer. 38:6).
Concise Bible Dictionary:
Roman Cisterns at Carthage – Malga—Tunisia
These were extensively used in Palestine for the collection of rain water. In Jerusalem every house has its cistern, and some have more than one. Solomon also brought water from long distances to be stored in cisterns, of which there are many under the Temple area. Some were really pits, for we read of the “wheel” being broken (Eccl. 12:6). There were also many cisterns in fields or by the road side as reservoirs for the irrigation of the land. For every man to be able to drink water out of his own cistern, was held out as a boon (2 Kings 18:31; Isa. 36:16). This is also used as a symbol not to indulge in illicit desires (Prov. 5:15). Israel is charged with forsaking God, the fountain of blessing, and making for themselves cisterns which could hold no water (Jer. 2:13).
Strong’s Dictionary of Hebrew Words:
From Manners and Customs of the Bible:
Genesis 37:24. They took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it.
There are numerous pits or cisterns still to be found in Palestine. They are often hewn out of the solid rock, and, being narrower at the mouth than at the bottom, it is not an easy thing to get out unaided, if one should he so unfortunate as to get in. Dr. Thomson mentions the case of an acquaintance who fell into one of these pits, or empty cisterns, and, being unable to extricate himself, passed two dreadful days and nights before he was discovered and drawn out, more dead than alive.
These cisterns, when dry, were sometimes used as dungeons for prisoners, and thus Joseph’s brethren put him into one. The prophet Jeremiah was also imprisoned in a cistern which had been dug in the courtyard of the prison. See Jeremiah 38:6, where the word bor is translated “dungeon.” This is the same word that in the text is rendered “pit,” and in some other places “cistern.”
See also Jeremiah 14:3, Zechariah 9:11, and the note on Jeremiah 2:18 (#530).