Out of the Pit Wherein Is No Water: Joseph, Jeremias and the Prisoners Christ Set Free
Old Testament: Genesis 37:23-24; Jeremias 38:6
And as soon as he came to his brethren, they forthwith stript him of his outside coat, that was of divers colours: And cast him into an old pit, where there was no water. ... Then they took Jeremias and cast him into the dungeon of Melchias the son of Amelech, which was in the entry of the prison: and they let down Jeremias by ropes into the dungeon, wherein there was no water, but mire. And Jeremias sunk into the mire.
Old Testament, also: Zacharias 9:11-12
Thou also by the blood of thy testament hast sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit, wherein is no water. Return to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope, I will render thee double as I declare today.
New Testament: 1 Peter 3:18-19; Hebrews 13:20
Because Christ also died once for our sins, the just for the unjust: that he might offer us to God, being put to death indeed in the flesh, but enlivened in the spirit, In which also coming he preached to those spirits that were in prison. ... And may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great pastor of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the blood of the everlasting testament.
The connection
Twice in Scripture a just man is thrown into a pit with no water in it. Joseph's brothers stripped him of his coat "And cast him into an old pit, where there was no water" (Genesis 37:24). The princes let Jeremias down by ropes "into the dungeon, wherein there was no water, but mire. And Jeremias sunk into the mire" (Jeremias 38:6). Both were drawn up again, Joseph by the merchants and Jeremias by Abdemelech, who let down "old rags, and old rotten things" on cords (38:11). Zacharias promised a greater drawing up: "Thou also by the blood of thy testament hast sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit, wherein is no water. Return to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope" (Zacharias 9:11-12). At the Last Supper Christ named that blood: "this is my blood of the new testament, which shall be shed for many unto remission of sins" (Matthew 26:28). He "died once for our sins, the just for the unjust ... In which also coming he preached to those spirits that were in prison" (1 Peter 3:18-19), and the God of peace "brought again from the dead the great pastor of the sheep, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the blood of the everlasting testament" (Hebrews 13:20). St Cyril of Jerusalem, teaching on the Crucifixion: "Tombs were opened, and the dead arose, because of Him who was free among the dead; He sent forth His prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water." St Augustine hears the prophet "speaking in the Spirit of prophecy to Christ Himself of the remission of sins through His blood". The Catechism teaches that Christ went down to the realm of the dead not to free the damned but to free the just who had gone before Him (CCC 633).
Moral sense
St Augustine reads the waterless pit as "the depth of human misery, which is, as it were, dry and barren, where there are no streams of righteousness, but only the mire of iniquity". The psalm sings the way out: God "brought me out of the pit of misery and the mire of dregs. And he set my feet upon a rock" (Psalms 39:3). Nobody climbs out of a waterless pit alone; someone has to come down for him. Jeremias was drawn up on cords and old rags; the soul is drawn up by the blood of the testament, which Christ came all the way down to bring.
Anagogical sense
The risen Christ says, "I ... have the keys of death and of hell" (Apocalypse 1:18). The one who threw the just into pits ends in the pit himself: the angel "cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should no more seduce the nations" (20:3), and at the last "the devil, who seduced them, was cast into the pool of fire and brimstone" (20:9). The pits that held the just could not keep them; the one that holds the deceiver is sealed by God.
The Fathers
St Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture XIII.34: "The Sun was darkened, because of the Sun of Righteousness. Rocks were rent, because of the spiritual Rock. Tombs were opened, and the dead arose, because of Him who was free among the dead; He sent forth His prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water." St Augustine, City of God XVIII.35: "speaking in the Spirit of prophecy to Christ Himself of the remission of sins through His blood, he says, Thou also, by the blood of Thy testament, hast sent forth Thy prisoners from the lake wherein is no water. ... it seems to me that no meaning suits better than that of the depth of human misery, which is, as it were, dry and barren, where there are no streams of righteousness, but only the mire of iniquity."
Warrant
Patristic. St Cyril of Jerusalem reads Zacharias 9:11 of the Crucifixion, the tombs opened and the dead set free by Him "who was free among the dead" (Catechetical Lecture XIII.34), and St Augustine reads it as spoken to Christ of the remission of sins through His Blood, while allowing that the pit may be read in more than one way (City of God XVIII.35). Checked in the Hebrew and the Greek, and the phrase holds in both: Genesis 37:24 has habbor req ein bo mayim, the pit was empty, no water in it, and Zacharias 9:11 has mibbor ein mayim bo, from a pit with no water in it; the Septuagint has lakkos ... hydor ouk eichen and ek lakkou ouk echontos hydor. The blood of the testament is the same phrase in the Greek: en haimati diathekes sou at Zacharias 9:11, to haima mou tes diathekes at Matthew 26:28, and en haimati diathekes aioniou at Hebrews 13:20. In the Hebrew of Zacharias 9:11 God says I have sent forth, speaking to Sion; the Latin, emisisti, and the Douay put it in the second person, which is how St Cyril and St Augustine take it of Christ. Jeremias's dungeon and the bottomless pit of the Apocalypse, a different word in the Greek, are the entry's own. Dunk found the entry from the verses where a man is cast into a pit, from Joseph to the Apocalypse.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 633.
The verses
Genesis 37:23 · Genesis 37:24 · Jeremias 38:6 · Zacharias 9:11 · Zacharias 9:12 · 1 Peter 3:18 · 1 Peter 3:19 · Hebrews 13:20
