In asking What man is like Job, Elihu uses Job’s name for the second time. Elihu’s question is equivalent to “Is there anyone like Job?” or “What kind of a man is Job?”

Who drinks up scoffing like water quotes 15.16b almost to the word. There Eliphaz said it of mankind in general, but here Elihu applies it strictly to Job. There it was “iniquity,” but here it is scoffing. Job’s “mockery, ridicule, scorn” are directed at religious and moral truths, as these are held by Elihu and the friends. In English the figure drinks up scoffing suggests that such a person can absorb or withstand a great deal of ridicule without being affected. But the figure as used here refers to a person who ridicules someone a great deal. The object of Job’s scoffing is God, or perhaps religion as viewed by the friends. Good News Translation, which translates the drinking figure as “never shows respect,” has God as the object. Bible en français courant has attempted to retain the figure through the use of a simile: “He deals in ridicule as easily as he drinks a glass of water.” In some languages we may say “he pours out scorn as easily as he pours water out of a cup” or “he spits out ridicule as easily as he drinks water.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, Wiliam. A Handbook on Job. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1992. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .