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).