A PIT or cistern — a bottle-shaped cut in the rock for collecting rainwater, smooth-sided and impossible to climb out of, which is why an empty one makes such an efficient prison. It is the hole Joseph's brothers threw him into at Dothan ('and the pit was empty; there was no water in it,' 37:24) — and it is the word Joseph himself uses of his Egyptian jail: 'here too I have done nothing that they should put me in the PIT' (40:15). ⚠️ The KJV, ASV and NIV all read 'dungeon' in 40:15 while reading 'pit' in 37:24, so an English reader cannot hear that Joseph is describing his cell with the same word he would use for that hole in the ground. This translation renders both 'pit.' Jeremiah is later lowered into one with mud at the bottom (Jeremiah 38:6). → first discussed at Gen 40:15