Drink waters out of thine own cistern, etc.; i.e. in the wife of your own choice, or in the legitimate sphere of marriage, seek the satisfaction of your natural impulses. The pure, innocent, and chaste nature of such pleasures is appropriately compared with the pure and wholesome waters of the cistern and the wellspring.
The "drinking" carries with it the satisfying of a natural want. Agreeably with oriental and scriptural usage, "the wife" is compared with a "cistern" and "well." Thus in the Song of Solomon the "bride" is called a spring shut up, a fountain sealed" (So Song of Solomon 4:12).
Sarah is spoken of under exactly the same figure that is used here, viz. the bor, or "cistern," in Isaiah 51:1. The figure was not confined to women, however, as we find Judah alluded to as "waters" in Isaiah 48:1, and Jacob or Israel so appearing in the prophecy of Balaam (Numbers 24:7).
The people are spoken of by David as they that are "of the fountain of Israel" (Psalms 68:26). A similar imagery is employed in the New Testament of the wife. The apostles St. Paul and St. Peter both speak of her as "the vessel ( τὸ σκεῦος)" (see 1 Thessalonians 4:4 and 1 Peter 3:7).
The forms of the original, b'or and b'er, standing respectively for "cistern" and "well," indicate a common derivation from baar, "to dig." But bor is an artificially constructed reservoir or cistern, equivalent to the Vulgate cisterna, and LXX.
ἄγγειος, while b'er is the natural spring of water, equivalent to the Vulgate putens. So Aben Ezra, who says, on Le Ezra 2:36, "Bor is that which catches the rain, while b'er is that from within which the water wells up."
This explanation, however, does not entirely cover the terms as used here. The "waters" may be the pure water conveyed into the cistern, and not simply the water which is caught in its descent born heaven.
The parallel term, "running waters" (Hebrew, noz'lim), describes the flowing limpid stream fit, like the other, for drinking purposes. A similar use of the terms is made in the So Ezra 4:15, "a well of living waters and streams (v'noz'lim) from Lebanon."
It may be remarked that the allusion to the wife, under the figures employed, enhances her value. It indicates the high estimation in which she is to be held, since the "cistern" or "well" was one of the most valuable possessions and adjuncts of an Eastern house.
The teaching of the passage, in its bearing on the subject of marriage, coincides with that which is subsequently put forward by St. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 7:9.