a pit dug or hewn into the ground: a cistern for water, a hole that holds a person or traps an animal, and, in poetry, the grave.
TranslatabilityPartialCertaintySettled
At its core this is a plain, physical thing: a hole cut down into the rock or earth. In a dry land that one shape did a great deal of work, so the same word covers a whole family of holes. Most concretely it is a cistern, a dug or hewn basin that catches and stores water. An empty cistern is just a deep shaft, so it readily becomes a place to throw a person who is meant to be kept or gotten rid of: Joseph and Jeremiah are both lowered into one. Left uncovered, the same hole is a hazard an ox can tumble into, or a trap a schemer digs for someone else.
These are not separate words but one word seen at different jobs. What ties them together is the picture of a deep, walled-in hole in the ground that a person goes down into and cannot easily climb out of. The standard lexicons treat all of these as the single noun, with the cistern as the literal anchor and the rest as natural extensions of it.
The most striking extension is the last one. Because going down into a pit means disappearing below ground with no way back up, poets came to call death itself the Pit. To go down to the Pit is to die; those already dead are those who have gone down to it. This is the same word used for a backyard water cistern, now standing for the grave and the shadowy world of the dead. The translation traps below grow out of exactly this stretch from a literal hole to a name for death.
Nuances
1aa cistern or well: a dug or hewn basin in the rock that catches and holds water.
the Hebrew word can mean a man-made water basin and, in poetry, the grave itself, so a single occurrence may be naming a cistern, a dungeon, or death; plain English pit fixes on the bare hole and loses that reach.Gen 37:24Psa 30:3
Both
both name a deep hole in the ground that a person or animal can fall or be thrown into.Exo 21:33
Only pit
English pit suggests any sunken hollow, including natural ones and shallow ones, and carries no special link to water storage or to death; the Hebrew is more specifically a dug or hewn shaft and is the standard poetic name for the grave.
the same Hebrew word also covers a dungeon-pit and the grave, so it ranges far beyond water storage; English cistern is locked to the water sense alone.Jer 38:6
Both
both name a dug or hewn basin made to catch and hold water.Pro 5:15
Only cistern
cistern to a modern ear suggests a built tank or reservoir, often above ground; the Hebrew basin is a hole dug or cut down into rock or earth.
“well”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“dungeon”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“grave”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How bor differs from similar Hebrew words
בְּאֵרa well that taps a living spring or groundwater, so it keeps producing water; this word more often names a basin dug to catch and store rainwater, which can stand empty and dry.
is a well of fresh, living water dug down to a spring, the source flocks and households draw from.Gen 21:19Gen 26:19Gen 29:2
becomes a positive image of life and intimacy, a fountain of running water or one's own true source.Sng 4:15Pro 5:15
שַׁחַתanother poetic word for the pit or grave, leaning on the idea of a trap or of decay and ruin; this word leans on the plain picture of a deep hole one is lowered into.
carries the sense of decay and corruption, the rotting that overtakes a body in the grave, so to be spared the pit is to not see corruption.Psa 16:10Job 17:14Isa 38:17
is the destruction one is rescued or ransomed from, deliverance of life back from the brink of death.Psa 103:4Job 33:28Jon 2:6
שְׁאוֹלthe proper name for the realm of the dead as a whole, the gathered place all the dead go; this word names the grave-pit itself and often stands beside Sheol in the same line.
Names a real hole dug or hewn into the ground that holds water: a cistern. Sheol is never a thing you can dig or draw from.Deu 6:112Ki 18:31Pro 5:15
Serves as a literal prison or holding pit a living person is thrown into and can be lifted out of again. Sheol is never escaped by being pulled back up.Gen 37:24Jer 38:6Zec 9:11
Appears as an ordinary open hazard in everyday law: an uncovered pit an animal can fall into, for which someone is liable. Sheol carries no such mundane, legal sense.Exo 21:33Exo 21:34
Both
Both name the destination of the dying, set side by side as poetic partners: being brought up from one is being rescued from the other.Psa 30:3
Both picture the grave as a downward place the dead descend into, the deep below where one is laid and forgotten.Isa 14:15Ezk 31:16
Names the gathering-place of all the dead, where every person goes down at death, not any one physical hole. The grieving father expects to be brought down there himself.Gen 37:35Gen 42:38Job 14:13
Is pictured as a living, greedy power that opens its mouth and is never satisfied, swallowing people whole. A dug pit is acted upon, never an actor like this.Isa 5:14Pro 27:20Pro 30:16
Marks the theological limit of human reach yet not of God's: a realm God still sees into and can deliver from. A cistern is just a place, never invoked at this cosmic scale.Psa 139:8Psa 16:10Amo 9:2
Names a deep shaft you go down into and cannot simply climb out of, so a person can be lowered into one and left there: Joseph is thrown into an empty one, and Jeremiah sinks into the mud at the bottom of another.Gen 37:24Jer 38:6Jer 41:7
Often stands dry and empty, which is exactly what makes it usable as a holding cell or a hiding hole; prisoners are confined in one, and frightened people crawl into them to escape an army.Jer 37:16Gen 40:15Isa 24:221Sa 13:6Zec 9:11
Its open mouth is a hazard, so the law treats leaving one uncovered as negligence and makes the digger pay for the ox or donkey that falls in.Exo 21:33Exo 21:34
Becomes the standard picture of the grave and the world of the dead, so the dying are described as going down into it and the rescued as being brought back up out of it.Psa 28:1Psa 30:3Psa 88:4Isa 14:15Ezk 32:23
Serves as an image of a trap laid for someone else, where the schemer digs the shaft and then drops into it himself.Psa 7:15Pro 1:12
Both
Both are cut or built by human labor to secure water, and both count as the kind of public work a wealthy ruler undertakes and a settled land inherits.2Ch 26:10Deu 6:11Ecc 2:62Ki 20:20
Both hold water a household or town actually drinks from, so each can be named as the water supply people rely on.2Ki 18:31Pro 5:152Ki 20:20Neh 3:16
Both work as fixed landmarks in a story, known by the town they belong to, so a writer can place people at one without further explanation.1Ch 11:172Sa 3:262Sa 2:132Sa 4:12
An open basin of standing water at ground level, wide enough to wash in and visible enough to look at, so blood is rinsed off in one and a woman's eyes are compared to two of them.1Ki 22:38Sng 7:4
Belongs to a city's water system: it is fed or drained by a channel, sits at a named spot along the wall, and is built as part of securing the city's supply against a siege.2Ki 18:17Isa 7:3Isa 22:9Isa 22:11Neh 3:15
Holds enough surface water to feed growing things and to picture a place brimming with life, which is why its emptying can stand for a city draining away.Ecc 2:6Nam 2:8
It first of all names a hole cut into rock or dug into the ground to catch and keep water, the supply a household drinks from and a town depends on.2Ki 18:31Pro 5:15Neh 9:25Ecc 12:6
It names a hazard in the ground, an open hole an ox or a person can fall into, with laws about who pays for the loss, and it becomes a picture of the schemer who digs a hole and drops into it himself.Exo 21:33Exo 21:34Psa 7:15
Poets use it as a name for the grave and the world of the dead, so that going down to the pit is a way of saying a person has died and been cut off from the living.Psa 28:1Psa 30:3Isa 14:15Ezk 32:23
The word carries a shape with it, a deep hole with sides, so people are let down into it and have to be hauled back out with ropes.Gen 37:24Jer 38:6Jer 38:13
Both
In its confinement sense the second word overlaps the first: both name the place captives are shut away in, and Isaiah 24:22 uses them of the same prisoners in one line, gathered into the pit and locked in the place of shutting.Isa 24:22
The same spelling also names a trade, the metalworkers carried off from Jerusalem to Babylon beside the other skilled craftsmen, a use with nothing to do with holding anyone anywhere.2Ki 24:142Ki 24:16Jer 24:1Jer 29:2
Where it does mean confinement, it names the shutting in itself rather than any particular structure, so English versions can print "prison" without the text ever saying whether the place was deep, walled, or dug at all.Isa 42:7Psa 142:7
A dug hole with no water in it, used to hold a prisoner. This is the standing, man-made hollow that traps whatever falls into it.Gen 37:24Jer 38:6
A poetic name for the grave and the realm of the dead, the place one "goes down" to and cannot climb back out of.Psa 30:3Isa 14:15
A cistern that stores rain runoff, a fixed reservoir of standing water rather than a source that produces its own.Deu 6:112Ki 18:31
Both
Both name a water source a person drinks from, and Proverbs 5 pairs them as one image of a faithful marriage, drinking only from what is one's own.Pro 5:15Pro 5:18
First of all it is a hole in the ground for water, a basin dug or cut out of rock to catch and store it. Nothing about the other word ever names a water source.Deu 6:112Ki 18:31Pro 5:152Ch 26:10
It can be an open hazard or a trap, a shaft someone leaves uncovered that an animal falls into, or one deliberately dug so that an enemy will drop in.Exo 21:33Exo 21:34Psa 7:15
In poetry it becomes a name for death itself, the place people go down to and do not climb back out of, so that going down to the pit simply means dying.Psa 30:3Psa 88:4Isa 14:15Isa 38:18
It is an ordinary feature of the landscape all over the Bible, a hollow people hide in, draw water from, throw bodies into, or cut stone out of.1Sa 13:6Jer 41:7Ecc 12:6Isa 51:1
Both
Both name the very same Egyptian lockup Joseph was held in. The narrator uses the formal phrase for it, while Joseph and the narrator both fall back on the plain word for a pit when he begs to be let out of it and when Pharaoh's men hurry him out.Gen 39:20Gen 40:3Gen 40:15Gen 41:14
Both can name a place where a person is shut in and kept at somebody else's decision, held until an authority releases them or acts on their case.Gen 39:20Gen 39:22Exo 12:29Jer 37:16Jer 38:6
It never stands alone as a word for a thing you could dig. Every time it appears it sits inside the same fixed two-word phrase, "the house of the sohar," naming one building rather than one shape.Gen 39:20Gen 39:22Gen 40:3Gen 40:5
It names a staffed royal institution with an official in charge of it and prisoners of rank inside, including Pharaoh's own cupbearer and baker.Gen 39:21Gen 39:23Gen 40:3Gen 40:5
Its whole life in the Bible is one Egyptian setting in one stretch of the Joseph story, so it carries the foreign color of that court and never travels beyond it.Gen 39:20Gen 39:22Gen 40:5
Names a cistern cut into rock to catch and hold water, something a household owns, drinks from, and can find empty.2Ki 18:31Pro 5:15Ecc 12:6
Serves as a makeshift holding cell: a man is lowered into it, kept there, and hauled back out alive.Gen 37:24Gen 41:14Jer 38:6
Is the standard poetic name for the grave and the world of the dead, the place people go down to and do not climb back out of.Psa 30:3Isa 14:15Ezk 32:23
Shows up in Israel's law as property someone is answerable for: dig one, leave it uncovered, and you pay for the animal that falls in.Exo 21:33Exo 21:34
Both
Both are commonly rendered "pit" and both name a hole deep enough to swallow a person, so an English Bible alone gives no clue which word is in the text.Gen 37:242Sa 18:17
Both can hide someone in wartime, naming the sort of hole a hunted man disappears into when an army is sweeping the country.1Sa 13:62Sa 17:9
Both picture ruin as a fall: the person who is running, or scheming, drops into the hole and is finished.Psa 7:15Isa 24:18
Names a hollow the landscape already has rather than one someone dug: broken ground a fugitive can drop into, a deep hole in a forest, the mouth of a rocky opening where a dove nests.2Sa 17:92Sa 18:17Jer 48:28
Sits in a fixed warning that lines up terror, pit, and snare, so it is the hidden second danger that takes whoever survives the first one.Isa 24:17Jer 48:43Lam 3:47
Names a dug hole for water: a cistern or well, an empty one used as a dungeon to hold prisoners.Deu 6:11Pro 5:15Gen 37:24Jer 38:6
A poetic name for the realm of the dead itself, the deep place one sinks into, often crying out from its edge to be rescued.Psa 28:1Psa 30:3Psa 88:4
Both
Both name the place a corpse goes down into, and they stand together in the taunt over the slain king cast out of his grave into the pit.Isa 14:19Ezk 32:23Ezk 32:25
An empty water hole in the Hebrew Bible doubles as a jail. Brothers drop a man into a dry one to be rid of him, officials lower a prophet into another until he sinks in the mud, and a man remembers being put in one though he had done nothing wrong. The Greek word is never a place of confinement.Gen 37:24Gen 40:15Jer 37:16Jer 38:6
The Hebrew word becomes a plain way of talking about death. To go down to it, or to be counted with those who go down to it, is to die and be past helping, which is why prayers beg not to be left there and why a king brought low is said to be taken down to it.Psa 28:1Psa 30:3Psa 88:4Pro 1:12Isa 14:15
The Hebrew word can also name the hollow left in the ground where stone was cut away, so a prophet can tell his hearers to look back at the quarry they were dug from.Isa 51:1
Both
Both name a shaft sunk into rock or earth that holds drinkable water, the everyday household supply a family owns and draws from. When Israel's scriptures were put into Greek, the Greek word was one of the ordinary choices for the Hebrew one, and the picture behind both is the same: a man told to drink from his own water hole, and a deep one beside a road with no bucket to reach the water.2Ki 18:31Pro 5:15Jhn 4:11Jhn 4:12
Both name an open hole in the ground as a hazard that livestock and people fall into, and both turn up in the same kind of ruling about it. Hebrew law makes the man who left one uncovered pay for the ox that drops in, and Jesus asks who would not haul out a son or an ox that had fallen into one, even on the sabbath.Exo 21:33Exo 21:34Luk 14:5
Only the Greek word is used for a shaft that is locked, then opened from above so that what is below comes pouring up out of it. A key is turned, the mouth of the deep is unsealed, and smoke rises out of it like the smoke of a great furnace. The Hebrew word never works this way: things go down into it and stay there.Rev 9:1Rev 9:2
Names a dug water hole, the household cistern that catches and stores rain, which is why it is often rendered "cistern" or "well" rather than "pit".2Ki 18:31Pro 5:152Ch 26:10Neh 9:25
Turns into a picture of death itself, the depth the dying go down to and pray to be spared from.Psa 30:3Psa 28:1Isa 14:15Ezk 32:23
Shows up in everyday law and proverb as an open hazard in the ground, something a person digs and is then responsible for when an animal or the digger falls in.Exo 21:33Exo 21:34Psa 7:15
Both
Both name a hole in the ground that a person is lowered or thrown down into and shut up in, at the order of people with power over them.Jer 38:6Jer 37:16Dan 6:16
Both are places someone can be brought back up out of alive, which is what turns each story into a rescue.Gen 37:28Dan 6:23
Names an enclosure where the king keeps lions, so the danger in it is the animals waiting inside rather than water, mud, or depth.Dan 6:7Dan 6:16Dan 6:24
Works as an official execution chamber: its mouth is closed with a stone and stamped with the royal seal so the sentence cannot be undone, and the men who accused Daniel are killed in it.Dan 6:17Dan 6:24
Is never something a person digs for their own use; it belongs to the palace, and people end up in it only by royal order.Dan 6:12Dan 6:16
What scholars say about bor
The standard critical lexicons (BDB, HALOT, DCH) and the theological dictionaries (TDOT, NIDOTTE) treat this as a single noun whose root sense is a dug or hewn hole, most concretely a cistern for water. From that concrete anchor the lexicons trace the range to an empty pit used to confine a person (Joseph, Jeremiah), an open pit that traps people or animals, and, by a well-attested poetic extension, the grave and the world of the dead, especially in the recurring expression for those who go down to the Pit. There is no serious proposal that the cistern sense and the grave sense are unrelated homonyms; they are understood as one word stretched by metaphor, with cistern as the literal core. The word stands in close relation to the ordinary word for a spring-fed well and, in the death imagery, runs parallel to Sheol and to other poetic terms for the pit, a connection studied in the literature on Israelite views of death and the underworld.
Sources
BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), s.v. בּוֹרlexicon
HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner), s.v. בּוֹרlexicon
DCH (Clines, ed.), s.v. בּוֹרlexicon
H. Ringgren, "בּוֹר," in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (TDOT) 2:225-227dictionary
Philip S. Johnston, Shades of Sheol: Death and Afterlife in the Old Testament (2002)monograph
Nicholas J. Tromp, Primitive Conceptions of Death and the Nether World in the Old Testament (1969)monograph