How much more abominable and filthy [is] man, which drinketh iniquity like water?
Ver. 16. How much more abominable and filthy is man?] And therefore abominable because filthy, or stinking and noisome, as putrefied meat is to the nose and palate. Now this is every man's case by nature, Psalms 14:3, there being never a barrel of better herring, but all in a pickle, though few believe it. Kακοι κεν θριπες κακοι δε και ιπες. Prov. Circumcision of old taught them, that that which was begotten by that part deserved, in like sort, as abominable and accursed, to be cut off and thrown away by God. And what else doth baptism still teach us? See Col 2:11-13 1 Peter 3:21. David compareth man to the beasts that perish, pecoribus morticinis, to beasts that die of the murrain, and so become carrion, and are good for nothing, Psalms 49:20 (Tremel.). He lieth rotting in the graves of sin, wrapt up in the winding sheet of hardness of heart, and (as the carcass crawleth with worms) swarming with noisome lusts, such as God's soul abhorreth. This is his nature; and for his life,
He drinketh iniquity like water] He is as it were altogether steeped and soaked in sin; he sucks it in with delight, as an ox doth water, or a drunkard wine, who prefer that you take away his life as his liquor, and could find in his heart to be drowned in a butt of Malmsey; as George, duke of Clarence, was in the Tower of London, and, as some say, by his own election. Sure it is that a draught of sin is the only merry-go-down to a carnal man; he drinks it frequently and abundantly, even till he swelleth therewith. One observeth here, that Eliphaz saith not, Man eateth, but, drinketh iniquity; because to eat a man must chew, and this taketh up some time, and leaveth a liberty to spit out what he liketh not; but drink goeth down without delay, and we usually drink oftener than we eat; so here.