Bible Strands
Job 15:16
how much less man, who is vile and corrupt, who drinks injustice like water?
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Eliphaz addresses Job in a debate over divine justice, immediately after asserting that God trusts neither His holy ones nor the heavens. The words — The Hebrew נִתְעָב (nit'Av, "abhorrent") and שֹׁתֶה (shoTeh, "drinks") directly modify the human subject, establishing the verse's core imagery. The thread — The drinking metaphor reappears in Job 34:7 regarding Job, the swallowing of iniquity appears in Proverbs 19:28, and the declaration of universal corruption appears in Psalms 53:3. Why it lands — The text states that human nature inherently absorbs wrongdoing as naturally as drinking water, requiring the reader to confront the absence of innate moral purity.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?
Cross-references
- Job 34:7 What man is like Job, who drinks up derision like water?
- Proverbs 19:28 A corrupt witness mocks justice, and a wicked mouth swallows iniquity.
- Psalms 53:3 All have turned away, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.
- Romans 3:9 What then? Are we any better? Not at all. For we have already made the charge that Jews and Greeks alike are all under sin.
- Titus 3:3 For at one time we too were foolish, disobedient, misled, and enslaved to all sorts of desires and pleasures—living in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.
- Job 4:19 how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who can be crushed like a moth!
- Job 20:12 Though evil is sweet in his mouth and he conceals it under his tongue,
- Job 42:6 Therefore I despise myself, and I repent in dust and ashes.”
- Psalms 14:1 For the choirmaster. Of David. The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt; their acts are vile. There is no one who does good.
- Romans 1:28 Furthermore, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, He gave them up to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.