Job Chapter 6 verse 15 Holy Bible
My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, As the channel of brooks that pass away;
read chapter 6 in ASV
My friends have been false like a stream, like streams in the valleys which come to an end:
read chapter 6 in BBE
My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a stream, as the channel of streams which pass away,
read chapter 6 in DARBY
My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away;
read chapter 6 in KJV
My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away;
read chapter 6 in WBT
My brothers have dealt deceitfully as a brook, As the channel of brooks that pass away;
read chapter 6 in WEB
My brethren have deceived as a brook, As a stream of brooks they pass away.
read chapter 6 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 15. - My brethren; i.e. "my three friends," Eliphaz, who has spoken; Bildad and Zophar, who by their silence have shown their agreement with him. Have dealt deceitfully as a brook; i.e. "a winter torrent" - a "wady," to use the modern Arab expression. These watercourses are characteristic of Palestine and the adjacent regions. "During the winter months," says Dr. Cunningham Geikie, "they are often foaming rivers; but in the hot summer, when they would be of priceless value, their dry bed is generally the road from one point to another. The water rushes over the sheets of rock as it would from the roof of a house, and converging, as it descends, into minor streams in the higher wadies, these sweep on to a common channel in some central valley, and, thus united, swell in an incredibly short time into a deep, troubled, roaring flood, which fills the whole bottom of the wady with an irresistible torrent... The streams from Lebanon, and also from the high mountains of the Hauran. send down great floods of dark and troubled waters in spring, when the ice and snow of their summits are melted; but they dry up under the heat of summer, and the track of the torrent, with its chaos of boulders, stones, and gravel, seems as if it had not known a stream for ages. So Job's friends had in former times seemed as if they would be true to him for ever; but their friendship had vanished, like the rush of the torrent that had passed away" ('The Holy Land and the Bible,' vol. 1. pp. 123-125). And as the stream of brooks they pass away; or, the channel; i.e. the wady itself. Canon Cook well says on this, "The simile is remarkably complete. When little needed, the torrent overflows; when needed, it disappears. In winter it does not fertilize; in summer it is dried up. Nor is it merely useless; it deceives, alluring the traveller by the appearance of verdure, promising refreshment, and giving none."
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(15) Have dealt deceitfully as a brook.--This is one of the most celebrated poetical similes in the book, and carries us to life in the desert, where the wadys, so mighty and torrent-like in the winter, are insignificant streams or fail altogether in summer. So when the writer saw the Gnadalquiver (or mighty wady) at Cordova, in August, it was a third-rate stream, running in many divided currents in its stony bed.
