a pit: a deep hole dug in the ground, and by extension the grave, or the ruin that swallows the dying
At its most concrete this word names a hole dug in the earth, usually a hidden trap set to catch a wild animal or an unsuspecting enemy. The Bible returns again and again to the poetic justice of such a pit: the schemer who digs it to trap someone else is the one who tumbles in (Psalm 7:15; Proverbs 26:27). The image is a snare that recoils on its maker.
From that plain hole in the ground the word reaches for something larger. A grave is a pit, and death feels like a fall into a hole from which there is no climbing out, so the same word becomes one of the Bible's names for the grave and for the realm of the dead. To go down to the pit is to die; to be lifted up out of the pit is to be rescued from death (Psalm 30:9; 103:4; Jonah 2:6). In this use it stands beside Sheol, the world of the dead, as a near-twin.
Because the word can slide from a physical hole into death and sheer ruin, English Bibles reach for several different words for it: pit, grave, corruption, destruction. Which one a translator chooses is not always obvious, and at Psalm 16:10 that choice has carried real weight, since ancient readers heard in it either the grave or bodily decay.
Nuances
Whether שַׁחַת at Psalm 16:10 means "the Pit" (the grave) or "corruption" (bodily decay). The two readings turn on which root the word derives from, and they change what the verse promises: rescue from death, or preservation of the body from decay.
- majority"The Pit," that is, the grave; the line is synonymous with the preceding "Sheol" and promises deliverance from death.; BDB, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, 1001, s.v. שַׁחַת; Koehler, Baumgartner, Stamm, HALOT, s.v. שַׁחַת
- minority"Corruption" or "decay," derived from the root for ruin; reflected in the Septuagint's διαφθορά and taken up by the New Testament citations of the verse.; Septuagint (LXX) Psalm 15:10, rendering διαφθοράν; Peter Craigie, Psalms 1-50 (Word Biblical Commentary 19), on Psalm 16:10