How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water?
Parallel translations
- WEB how much less one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks iniquity like water!
- BSB how much less man, who is vile and corrupt, who drinks injustice like water?
- NKJV How much less man, who is abominable and filthy, Who drinks iniquity like water!
- NASB How much less one who is detestable and corrupt: A person who drinks malice like water!
- NLT How much less pure is a corrupt and sinful person with a thirst for wickedness!
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Eliphaz concludes that sinful man drinks iniquity like water. He paints humanity, and especially Job, as utterly corrupt.
Overview
Eliphaz closes that 'one who is abominable and corrupt, a man who drinks iniquity like water' is far less clean than the heavens. He depicts humanity as eagerly sinful and implies Job is among the worst. Though the depravity of fallen man is a real biblical theme, Eliphaz weaponizes it against an innocent sufferer, missing the grace that meets such corruption in Christ.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Job 34:7What man is like Job, who drinketh up scorning like water?
- Prov 19:28An ungodly witness scorneth judgment: and the mouth of the wicked devoureth iniquity.
- Titus 3:3For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.
- Rom 3:9–19What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;
- Ps 53:3Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
- Rom 1:28–30And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
- Job 42:6Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.
- Job 20:12Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth, though he hide it under his tongue;
- Ps 14:1–3The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
- Job 4:19How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth?
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 15:16 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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