CISTERN . In Palestine, the climate and geological formation of the country render the storage of water a prime necessity of existence. Hence cisterns, mostly hewn in the solid rock, were universal in Bible times, and even before the Hebrew conquest ( Deuteronomy 6:11 , Nehemiah 9:25 , both RV [Note: Revised Version.] ). Thus at Gezer it has been found that ‘the rock was honeycombed with cisterns, one appropriated to each house [cf. 2 Kings 18:31 ] or group of houses … (and) fairly uniform in character. A circular shaft, about 3 feet in diameter and 5 feet deep, cut through the rock, expands downwards into a chamber roughly square or circular in plan, about 13 to 25 feet in diameter and generally about 20 feet deep.… The wall is generally covered with coarse plaster’ ( PEFSt [Note: Quarterly Statement of the same.] 1903, 111 f.).
A cistern might contain only rain water conveyed from the court or flat roof during the rainy season by gutters and pipes, or might be fed by a conduit led from a spring at a distance. The largest of the innumerable cisterns of Jerusalem, the ‘great sea’ in the Haram area, which is estimated to have held 3,000,000 gallons, derived its water-supply partly from surface drainage and partly from water brought by a conduit from Solomon’s Pools near Bethlehem (Wilson).
The mouth of a cistern, through which the water was sometimes drawn by a wheel (Ecclesiastes 12:6 ), was legally required to have a cover ( Exodus 21:33 , cf. Jos. [Note: Josephus.] Ant . IV. viii. 37). A disused or temporarily empty cistern formed a convenient place of detention, as in the case of Joseph ( Genesis 37:20 ff.) and of Jeremiah ( Jeremiah 38:6 ff.).
A. R. S. Kennedy.