The dryness of the summer months in Palestine, and the absence of large rivers, together with the scarcity of springs in many places, make it necessary to collect into cisterns the rains which fall, and the waters which fill the small streams in the rainy season. This has been the custom in that laud from very early times. These cisterns are either dug in the earth or cut out of the soft limestone rock, and are of several kinds. Sometimes a shaft is sunk like a well, and the bottom widened into the shape of a jug. Excavations of this sort combine the characters of cisterns and wells, since they not only receive the rain which is conducted into them, but the water which percolates through the limestone. Another kind consists of chambers excavated out of the rock, with a hole in the roof. Again, an excavation is made perpendicularly, and the roof arched with masonry. Some are lined with wood or cement, while others are left in their natural state.
They are sometimes entirely open at the top, and are then entered by steps, or, in the case of large ones, (and some are very large,) by flights of stairs. Where they are roofed, a circular opening with a curb is at the top, and a wheel, with a rope and bucket, is provided. This is referred to in Ecclesiastes 12:66Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. (Ecclesiastes 12:6), “The wheel broken at the cistern.” Jerusalem is abundantly supplied with water by means of cisterns, and during all its long and terrible sieges has never suffered for want of a supply.
It is to these different kinds of receptacles for water that time prophet refers in the text. Though with proper care the water may he kept sweet for a time, it is often in a filthy condition, not to be compared to the pure water from living fountains, and at any time the cisterns are liable to become “broken,” and to leak. See also 2 Kings 18:3131Hearken not to Hezekiah: for thus saith the king of Assyria, Make an agreement with me by a present, and come out to me, and then eat ye every man of his own vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his cistern: (2 Kings 18:31); Isaiah 36:1616Hearken not to Hezekiah: for thus saith the king of Assyria, Make an agreement with me by a present, and come out to me: and eat ye every one of his vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his own cistern; (Isaiah 36:16).