Job 15:16

Translations

King James Version (KJV)

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

American King James Version (AKJV)

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

American Standard Version (ASV)

How much less one that is abominable and corrupt, A man that drinketh iniquity like water!

Basic English Translation (BBE)

How much less one who is disgusting and unclean, a man who takes in evil like water!

Webster's Revision

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

World English Bible

how much less one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks iniquity like water!

English Revised Version (ERV)

How much less one that is abominable and corrupt, a man that drinketh iniquity like water!

Definitions for Job 15:16

Iniquity - Sin; wickedness; evil.

Clarke's Job 15:16 Bible Commentary

How much more abominable and filthy is man - As in the preceding verse it is said, he putteth no trust in his saints, it has appeared both to translators and commentators that the original words, אף כי aph ki, should be rendered how much Less, not how much More: How much less would he put confidence in man, who is filthy and abominable in his natures and profligate in his practice, as he drinks down iniquity like water? A man who is under the power of sinful propensities commits sin as greedily as the thirsty man or camel drinks down water. He thinks he can never have enough. This is a finished character of a Bad man; he hungers and thirsts after Sin: on the contrary, the Good man hungers and thirsts after Righteousness.

Barnes's Job 15:16 Bible Commentary

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.

Wesley's Job 15:16 Bible Commentary

15:16 Who - 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.