Cistern

A reservoir for storing water collected from rainfall or from a spring. When empty, it was used for a variety of purposes. The word is also employed in a figurative sense.

Cisterns were used to collect water

2 Chronicles 26:10 See also 2 Kings 18:31 parallel Isaiah 36:16; Jeremiah 14:3

Since he had much livestock in the foothills and in the plain, he built towers in the desert and dug many cisterns. And since he was a lover of the soil, he had farmers and vinedressers in the hill country and in the fertile fields.

Other uses for cisterns

Jeremiah 38:6–13 See also Genesis 37:19–24, Genesis 37:28–30; Jeremiah 41:4–7, Jeremiah 41:9; Zechariah 9:11

So they took Jeremiah and dropped him into the cistern of Malchiah, the king’s son, which was in the courtyard of the guard. They lowered Jeremiah with ropes into the cistern, which had no water but only mud, and Jeremiah sank down into the mud. Now Ebed-melech the Cushite, a court official in the royal palace, heard that Jeremiah had been put into the cistern. While the king was sitting at the Gate of Benjamin, Ebed-melech went out from the king’s palace and said to the king, “My lord the king, these men have acted wickedly in all that they have done to Jeremiah the prophet. They have dropped him into the cistern, where he will starve to death, for there is no more bread in the city.” So the king commanded Ebed-melech the Cushite, “Take thirty men from here with you and pull Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies.” Then Ebed-melech took the men with him and went to the king’s palace, to a place below the storehouse. From there he took old rags and worn-out clothes and lowered them with ropes to Jeremiah in the cistern. Ebed-melech the Cushite cried out to Jeremiah, “Put these worn-out rags and clothes under your arms to pad the ropes.” Jeremiah did so, and they pulled him up with the ropes and lifted him out of the cistern. And Jeremiah remained in the courtyard of the guard.

Cisterns used as symbols

Cisterns as symbols of spiritual well-being

Jeremiah 2:13

“For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living water, and they have dug their own cisterns — broken cisterns that cannot hold water.

Cisterns as symbols of physical well-being

See also Proverbs 5:15–19