Job 14:4, 15:15-16, Joh 3:6 | JFB | STEP | 4. A plea in mitigation. The doctrine of original sin was held from the first. "Man is unclean from his birth, how then can God expect perfect cleanness from such a one and deal so severely with me?"

Job 14:4

4. A plea in mitigation. The doctrine of original sin was held from the first. "Man is unclean from his birth, how then can God expect perfect cleanness from such a one and deal so severely with me?"

Job 15:15-16

15. Repeated from Job 4:18; "servants" there are "saints" here; namely, holy angels.

heavens—literally, or else answering to "angels" (see on Job 4:18, and Job 25:5).

16. filthy—in Arabic "sour" (Ps 14:3; 53:3), corrupted from his original purity.

drinketh— (Pr 19:28).

John 3:6

6-8. That which is born, &c.—A great universal proposition; "That which is begotten carries within itself the nature of that which begat it" [OLSHAUSEN].

flesh—Not the mere material body, but all that comes into the world by birth, the entire man; yet not humanity simply, but in its corrupted, depraved condition, in complete subjection to the law of the fall (Ro 8:1-9). So that though a man "could enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born," he would be no nearer this "new birth" than before (Job 14:4; Ps 51:5).

is spirit—"partakes of and possesses His spiritual nature."