Pit

VIEW:32 DATA:01-04-2020

PIT.—Of the dozen Heb. words, besides two Gr. words in NT, rendered ‘pit’ in EV [Note: English Version.] , the following are the most important.
1. The term bôr is responsible for nearly half of all the OT occurrences. It is the usual word for the cistern with which almost every house in the towns was supplied (see Cistern). Disused cisterns in town and country are the ‘pits’ mentioned in Gen_37:20 ff. (that into which Joseph was cast [cf. art. Prison]), 1Sa_13:6 (RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] ‘cisterns’ etc.). In some passages, indeed, the context shows that ‘cistern,’ not ‘pit,’ is the proper rendering, as in Lev_11:36, Exo_21:33 f. with reference to an uncovered and unprotected cistern; cf. Luk_14:5, RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘well’ for AV [Note: Authorized Version.] ‘pit.’ The systematic exploration of Palestine has brought to light many series of underground caves which were used at various periods as dwelling-places (cf. 1Sa_13:6); hence by a natural figure, ‘pit’ became a synonym of Sheol, the under world (Isa_14:15, Psa_28:1, Pro_1:12, and oft.; cf. Rev_9:1 ff. and Sheol).
2. A second word rendered ‘pit’ (shachath) seems to have denoted originally a pit in which, after concealing the mouth by a covering of twigs and earth, hunters trapped their game (Eze_19:4; Eze_19:8). Like the preceding, it is frequently used in a figurative sense of the under world; so five times in Job_33:1-33 (RV [Note: Revised Version.] ).
3. A hunter’s pit, denoted by pachath, also supplied the figure of Isa_24:17 f. and its parallels Jer_48:43 f. and Lam_3:47 RV [Note: Revised Version.] —note the association with ‘snare.’ Such a pit served as a place of concealment (2Sa_17:9) and of burial (2Sa_18:17).
4. In Mar_12:1 RV [Note: Revised Version.] rightly recognizes ‘a pit for the winepress,’ where the reference is to what the Mishna calls ‘a cement-vat,’ i.e. a pit dug in the soil for a wine-vat (cf. Mat_25:18, where the same expression ‘digged’ is used), as contrasted with the usual rock-hewn vats (see Wine and Strong Drink, § 2).
A. R. S. Kennedy.
Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible
Edited by James Hastings, D.D. Published in 1909

(1) She'ol, "Hades"; the covered, unseen world. (See HELL.)
(2) Shachath, "sunk and lightly covered [pit]" to entrap animals (Psa_9:16; Psa_35:7); typifying "hopeless doom" (Job_33:18; Job_33:24; Job_33:28; Job_33:30).
(3) Bor, "a pit or cistern once full of water, now empty", with miry clay beneath (Psa_40:2; Zec_9:11); used as dungeon wherein the captive has no water or food; so Jeremiah (Jer_38:6; Jer_38:9), Isa_51:14; hence symbolizing "the dishonored grave of the once haughty transgressor", with the idea of condign [deserved; appropriate] punishment in the unseen world, shadowed forth by the ignominious state of the body (Eze_31:14; Eze_31:16; Eze_32:18; Eze_32:24). (See ABYSS on the "bottomless pit": Rev_9:1-2; Rev_20:1-2.)
Fausset's Bible Dictionary
By Andrew Robert Fausset, co-Author of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown's 1888.

Pit. See Hell.
Smith's Bible Dictionary
By Dr. William Smith.Published in 1863

The word translates different Hebrew words of which the most important are: (1) בּור, bōr, ?pit? or ?cistern,? made by digging, (Gen_37:20); hence, ?dungeon? (Jer_38:6, margin ?pit?); (2) כּאר, be'ēr, ?pit? or ?well? made by digging (Gen_21:25); (3) שׁאל, she'ōl, generally rendered ?hell? in the King James Version (see HELL); (4) שׁחת, shaḥath, a pit in the ground to catch wild animals. (1), (2) and (4) above are used metaphorically of the pit of the ?grave? or of ?sheol? (Psa_28:1; Psa_30:3; Job_33:24). the King James Version sometimes incorrectly renders (4) by ?corruption.? (5) פּחת, paḥath, ?pit,? literally (2Sa_17:9), and figuratively (Jer_48:43). In the New Testament ?pit? renders βόθυνος, bóthunos (Mat_15:14), which means any kind of hole in the ground. In the corresponding passage Lk (Luk_14:5 the King James Version) has φρέαρ, phréar, ?well,? the same as (2) above. For ?bottomless pit? (Rev_9:1, the King James Version, etc.). See ABYSS.

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
PRINTER 1915.

Num_16:33 (a) The original word is sheol, which in the original Hebrew means hell, or the place of departed spirits. These men and their families and their possessions all went down into hell without dying. They are in hell today in their bodies. GOD did a new thing. He never did it before, and has never done it since.

Psa_9:15 (b) The word refers to any trap or device whereby GOD's child is overtaken by the enemy and made captive. (See also Psa_35:7; Psa_119:85; Pro_28:10).

Psa_40:2 (b) Any deep trouble may be called a pit. It is so easy to fall in, and so hard to get out. It is always a very unpleasant experience.

Psa_88:6 (b) Since this was written by the sons of Korah, whose father went down to hell alive, therefore, it may be that these sons are indicating that they too should have been punished by GOD, but instead were saved by His grace. (See Num_26:11).

Eze_19:4 (b) Probably this refers to the battle plan of the enemy.
Wilson's Dictionary of Bible Types
press 1957.

Pit
In the A. V. this word appears with a figurative as well as a literal meaning. It passes from the facts that belong to the outward aspect of Palestine and its cities to states or regions of the spiritual world. With this power it is used to represent several Hebrew and Greek words, and the starting-point which the literal meaning presents for the spiritual is, in each case, a subject of some interest.
1. Of these bor, בּוֹר (root בָּאִר, cognate בְּאֵר, beer, a well), occurs most frequently, and means a deep hole or pit, dug in the first instance for a well, or a cistern hewn or cut in stone, a reservoir, which the Orientals are in the habit of preparing in those regions where there are few or no springs, for the purpose of preserving rain-water for travellers and cattle. These cisterns and trenches are often without water, no supply being obtainable for them except from the rain. In old decayed cisterns the water leaks out, or becomes slimy (Jeremiah 2, 13). Such cisterns or pits, when without water, were often used in the East apparently for three purposes:
(1) As a place of sepulture (Psa_28:1; Psa_30:4; Isa_38:18), hence יוֹרְדֵי בוֹר, “they that go down to the pit”-a phrase of frequent occurrence, employed sometimes to denote dying without hope, but commonly a simple going down to the place of the dead (see Gesen. Lex. s.v.); also, “the graves set in the sides of the pit” (Exo_32:23), the recesses cut out for purposes of burial; or they might be the natural fissures in the rocks, abounding in all limestone formations, of which the rocks of Syria and Palestine chiefly consist.
(2) A prison: “they shall be gathered as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up” (Isa_24:22; also Jer_37:16; Exo_12:29). The pit or dungeon was a common place of punishment in the East, and very dreadful it was, as the case of often to be left to a slow death by starvation; and to be saved from such a doom was regarded as the greatest of all deliverances. Hence it was used
(3) as a place of destruction (Zec_9:11). In the case of Joseph, Reuben suggested the pit as a device for saving his brother; the others hostile to Joseph adopted it as the most secret, and, they might think, the least guilty method of making away with him (Gen_37:22-29).
As remarked above, in this word, as in the cognate בְּאֵר, bee (which is likewise rendered pit in Gen_14:10; Psa_55:23; Psa_69:15; Pro_23:27), the special thought is that of a pit or well dug for water (Gesen. Thesaur. s.v.). The process of desynonymizing which goes on in all languages seems to have confined the former to the state of the well or cistern, dug into the rock, but no longer filled with water. Thus, where the sense in both cases is figurative, and the same English word is used, we have pit (bedr) connected with the “deep water,” “the water- flood,” “the deep” (Psa_69:16), while in pit (=בּוֹר) there is nothing but the “miry clay” (Psa_40:2). Its dreariest feature is that there is “no water” in it (Zec_9:11). So far the idea involved has been rather that of misery and despair than of death. But in the phrase “they that go down to the pit” (בּוֹר) it becomes even more constantly than the synonyms noticed below (sheol, shachath) the representative of the world of the dead (Eze_31:14; Eze_31:16; Eze_32:18; Eze_32:24; Psa_28:1; Psa_143:7). There may have been two reasons for this transfer:
1. The wide, deep excavation became the place of burial. The “graves were set in the sides of the pit” (bor) (Eze_32:24). To one looking into it, it was visibly the home of the dead, while the vaguer, more mysterious Sheol carried the thoughts further to an invisible home.
2. The pit, however, in this sense, was never simply equivalent to burial-place. There is always implied in it a thought of scorn and condemnation. This, too, had its origin apparently in the use made of the excavations, which had either never been wells, or had lost the supply of water. The prisoner in the land of his enemies was left to perish in the pit (bor) (Zec_9:11). The greatest of all deliverances is that the captive exile is released from the slow death of starvation in it (shachath, Isa_51:14). The history of Jeremiah, cast into the dungeon or pit (bor) (Jer_38:6; Jer_38:9), let down into its depths with cords, sinking into the filth at the bottom (here also there is no water), with death by hunger staring him in the face, shows how terrible an instrument of punishment was such a pit. The condition of the Athenian prisoners in the stone quarries of Syracuse (Thuc. 7:87), the Persian punishment of the σπόδος (Ctesias, Pers. 48), the oubliettes of mediaeval prisons, present instances of cruelty more or less analogous. It is not strange that with these associations of material horror clustering round, it should have involved more of the idea of a place of punishment for the haughty or unjust than did the sheol or the grave. SEE WELL.
2. Sháchath, שִׁחִת, of which, as well as in the cognate שׁוּחָה, shuchâh (rendered “pit” in Pro_20:14; Jer_2:6; Jer_18:20; Jer_18:22), שְׁחוּת. shechuth (“pit,” Pro_28:10), שְׁחַית, shechith (“pit,” Lam_4:20; “destruction,” Psa_107:20), and שַׁיחָה, shichah (“pit,” Psa_57:6; Psa_119:85; Jer_18:22), as the root שׁוּחִshows, the sinking of the pit is the primary thought (Gesen. Thesaur. sv.). It is dug into the earth (Psa_9:16; Psa_119:85). A pit thus made and then covered lightly over, served as a trap by which animals or men might be ensnared (Psa_35:7). It thus became a type of sorrow and confusion, from which a man could not extricate himself, of the great doom which comes to all men, of the dreariness of death (Job_33:18; Job_33:24; Job_33:28; Job_33:30). To “go down to the pit” is to die without hope. It is the penalty of evildoers, that from which the righteous are delivered by the hand of God. SEE TRAP.
3. Sheol, שְׁאֹל, in Num_16:30; Num_16:33; Job_17:16. Here the word is one which is used only of the hollow, shadowy world, the dwelling of the dead, and as such it has been treated of tinder HELL.
4. Other Hebrew words rendered pit in the A. V. are the following: גֵּב, geb, something cut out, hence a cistern in the rock (Jer_14:3); and the cognate גֶּבֶא, gebe (Isa_30:14; Jer_14:3); גּוּמִוֹ, gumdts, something dug (only Ecc_10:8); and פִּחִת, pachath, an excavation (2Sa_17:9; 2Sa_18:17; Isa_24:17-18; Jer_48:43-44; “hole,” Jer_48:28; “snare,” 1 Samuel 3:47). The term mahamoroth, מִהֲמֹרוֹת, rendered “deep pits” (Psa_140:10), properly signifies streams, whirlpools, abysses of water. The rabbins, Symmachus, and Jerome understood pits of water.
5. The Greek terms are the following: in Rev_9:1-2, and elsewhere, the “bottomless pit” is the translation of τὸ φρέαρ τῆς ἀβύσσου. The A. V. has rightly taken φρέαρ here as the equivalent of bor rather than beer. The pit of the abyss is as a dungeon. It is opened with a key (Rev_9:1; Rev_20:1). Satan is cast into it, as a prisoner (Rev_20:2). In Mat_12:11, “pit” is the rendering of βόθυνος, a deep hole or “ditch” (as rendered in Mat_15:14; Luk_6:39). SEE CISTERN.

CYCLOPEDIA OF BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL AND ECCLESIASTICAL
press 1895.

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