Job 15:16

How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(16) How much more abominable and filthy is man . . .—This strong language, thus couched in general terms, is doubtless intended to reflect on Job, otherwise it would not need to have been so strong.

Benson Commentary

Job 15:16. How much more abominable and filthy is man — If saints are not to be trusted, much less sinners. If the heavens are not pure; if heavenly beings, who maintained their allegiance to their Maker, are not free from imperfection, when compared with God, much less is man, who is degenerated, and has rebelled against him. Which drinketh iniquity like water — Who, besides his natural proneness to sin, has contracted habits of sinning; and sins as freely, as greedily, and delightfully, as men, especially in those hot countries, drink up water.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

15:1-16 Eliphaz begins a second attack upon Job, instead of being softened by his complaints. He unjustly charges Job with casting off the fear of God, and all regard to him, and restraining prayer. See in what religion is summed up, fearing God, and praying to him; the former the most needful principle, the latter the most needful practice. Eliphaz charges Job with self-conceit. He charges him with contempt of the counsels and comforts given him by his friends. We are apt to think that which we ourselves say is important, when others, with reason, think little of it. He charges him with opposition to God. Eliphaz ought not to have put harsh constructions upon the words of one well known for piety, and now in temptation. It is plain that these disputants were deeply convinced of the doctrine of original sin, and the total depravity of human nature. Shall we not admire the patience of God in bearing with us? and still more his love to us in the redemption of Christ Jesus his beloved Son?

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

How much more abominable and filthy is man - How much more than the angels, and than the heavens. In Job 4:19, the image is somewhat different. There it is, how can man be the object of the divine confidence since he lives in a house of clay, and is so frail? Here the image is more striking and forcible. The word rendered filthy (אלח 'âlach) means, in Arabic, to be sour, as milk, and then to be corrupt, in a moral sense; Psalm 14:3; Psalm 53:4. Here it means that man is defiled and polluted, and this declaration is a remarkable illustration of the ancient belief of the depravity of man.

Which drinketh iniquity like water - This is still a true, though a melancholy account of man. He loves sin, and is as greedy of it as a thirsty man is of water. He practices it as if it were his very nature - as much so as it is to drink. Perhaps too there may be an allusion, as Dr. Good supposes, to the large draught of water which the camel makes, implying that man is exceedingly greedy of iniquity; compare Job 20:12; Job 34:7; Proverbs 19:28.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

16. filthy—in Arabic "sour" (Ps 14:3; 53:3), corrupted from his original purity.

drinketh—(Pr 19:28).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Who, besides his natural proneness to sin, hath contracted habits and customs of sinning, and sinneth as freely and easily, as greedily and delightfully, as frequently and abundantly, as men, especially in those hot countries, used to drink up water. But this did not Job; and therefore though the things delivered by him and the rest be true in the general, yet they commit a great error in misapplying them to Job, for which therefore they are afterwards reproved.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

How much more abominable and filthy is man,.... In his natural, corrupt, and unregenerate estate; man, as a creature, was not abominable, but becoming sinful he is; he is so in himself, cast out to the loathing of his person, being full of wounds, bruises, and putrefying sores, yea, like a dead corrupted carcass, for he is dead in trespasses and sins, Ephesians 2:1; and he appears to be corrupt by the abominable works done by him, as all the works of the flesh are; yea, he is abominable to himself, when made sensible of his state and case; he then abhors himself, and repents of his sins, he loathes his sins, and himself for them; and must be much more so in the sight of God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, as man is nothing else than a mass of sin, and therefore must be "filthy"; for sin is of a defiling nature, it defiles the body and all its members, and the soul with all its powers and faculties: man is naturally and originally filthy, being conceived in sin, and shapen in iniquity; nor can a clean thing be brought out of an unclean; he is internally and universally unclean, his heart is a sink of sin, desperately wicked, and wickedness itself; his mind and conscience are defiled, and there is no place clean; and this appears outwardly in his actions, in his life and conversation, which is filthy also: for if the ploughing of the wicked is sin, and the righteousnesses of men are filthy rags, how impure must the immoral actions of wicked men be? man is so impure, that nothing but the blood of Christ can purify his heart, and purge his conscience from dead works, and make white his outward conversation garment:

which drinketh iniquity like water; it is as natural to him to commit iniquity as it is for a man to drink water when he is thirsty, and he does it with equal gust, delight, and pleasure; as cold water is delightful to a thirsty soul, so is sin to a sinner, a sweet morsel he holds in his mouth; various lusts are various pleasures, though these pleasures are but for a season: sin, like water, is easy to be come at, it is near at hand, it easily besets men, and is all around them, and they easily give into it; everyone turns to his wicked course as readily as the horse rushes into the battle; and the phrase may be expressive of the abundance of sin committed, like large draughts of water greedily taken down by a man athirst, and repeated again and again; moreover, as water drank enters into men, and is taken down as an harmless thing, yet often proves very hurtful and pernicious to them when drank while they are hot, and occasions disorders, which issue in death; so sin, though it may seem harmless, and be pleasing and refreshing, going down like water, yet it works like poison, and is the gall of asps within a man, and ends in eternal death, if grace prevents not. This is the conclusion and application of the whole to man, arguing from the greater to the lesser, and so proving the impurity and imperfection of man, and that he cannot be clean and righteous before God of himself.

Geneva Study Bible

How much more abominable and filthy is man, which {k} drinketh iniquity like water?

(k) Who has a desire to sin, as he who is thirsty to drink.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

16. According to the Hebrew punctuation the verse runs,

How much less the abominable and corrupt,

Man, which drinketh in iniquity like water.

The word “corrupt,” only here and Psalm 14:3 (Psalm 53:3), occurs in Arab. in the sense of “turned,” sour, of milk; it is used in Heb. only in a moral sense (A. V. filthy). “Man” here is said, of course, of mankind, not specially of Job, and Eliphaz declares that his greedy avidity for evil is like that of a thirsty man for water. The words strongly indicate to Job the view which Eliphaz takes of him and his sufferings, and thus naturally form the transition to the second half of his speech.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 16. - How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water? rather, How much less one that is abominable and impure a man that drinketh in iniquity etc.? It cannot be doubted that Job is individually pointed at. Not mankind generally, but a particular man, is intended; and the particular man can be none other than Job. Thus we see how the progress of the controversy has tended to exasperate the disputants, and change the "comforters" from smooth-tongued friends into open enemies and accusers. Job 15:16

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

14 What is mortal man that he should be pure,

And that he who is born of woman should be righteous?

15 He trusteth not His holy ones,

And the heavens are not pure in His eyes:

16 How much less the abominable and corrupt,

Man, who drinketh iniquity as water!

The exclamation in Job 15:14 is like the utterance: mortal man and man born flesh of flesh cannot be entirely sinless. Even "the holy ones" and "the heavens" are not. The former are, as in Job 5:1, according to Job 4:18, the angels as beings of light (whether קדשׁ signifies to be light from the very first, spotlessly pure, or, vid., Psalter, i. 588f., to be separated, distinct, and hence exalted above what is common); the latter is not another expression for the אנגּלי מרומא (Targ.), the "angels of the heights," but שׁמים is the word used for the highest spheres in which they dwell (comp. Job 25:5); for the angels are certainly not corporeal, but, like all created things, in space, and the Scriptures everywhere speak of angels and the starry heavens together. Hence the angels are called the morning stars in Job 38:7, and hence both stars and angels are called צבא השׁמים and צבאות (vid., Genesis. S. 128). Even the angels and the heavens are finite, and consequently are not of a nature absolutely raised above the possibility of sin and contamination.

Eliphaz repeats here what he has already said, Job 4:18.; but he does it intentionally, since he wishes still more terribly to describe human uncleanness to Job (Oetinger). In that passage אף was merely the sign of an anti-climax, here כּי אף is quanto minus. Eliphaz refers to the hereditary infirmity and sin of human nature in Job 15:14, here (Job 15:16) to man's own free choice of that which works his destruction. He uses the strongest imaginable words to describe one actualiter and originaliter corrupted. נתעב denotes one who is become an abomination, or the abominated equals abominable (Ges. 134, 1); נאלח, one thoroughly corrupted (Arabic alacha, in the medial VIII conjugation: to become sour, which reminds one of ζύμη, Rabb. שׂאר שׁבּעסּה, as an image of evil, and especially of evil desire). It is further said of him (an expression which Elihu adopts, Job 34:7), that he drinks up evil like water. The figure is like Proverbs 26:6, comp. on Psalm 73:10, and implies that he lusts after sin, and that it is become a necessity of his nature, and is to his nature what water is to the thirsty. Even Job does not deny this corruption of man (Job 14:4), but the inferences which the friends draw in reference to him he cannot acknowledge. The continuation of Eliphaz' speech shows how they render this acknowledgment impossible to him.