Hebrew word · H444
אָלַח
ne'elachu
to corrupt
Found only in the passive-reflexive form (niphal): 'become corrupt, go bad, become tainted'. It appears just three times: Job 15:16, Ps 14:3 and Ps 53:4. Lexicons (BDB, HALOT) compare it with an Arabic root used for things going sour or rancid, often explained as milk turning sour.
Appears 3 times in 3 verses of the Hebrew Old Testament. ·
What it means
(Niphal) to be corrupt morally, tainted
Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).
In depth
- Range of meaning
Found only in the passive-reflexive form (niphal): 'become corrupt, go bad, become tainted'. It appears just three times: Job 15:16, Ps 14:3 and Ps 53:4. Lexicons (BDB, HALOT) compare it with an Arabic root used for things going sour or rancid, often explained as milk turning sour. That comparison is suggestive but rests on a cognate language, so the exact image cannot be certain.
- Against the English
'Corrupt' (BSB, ESV, WEB, NIV) is accurate in its older sense of 'decayed, rotten'. Today most people hear it as dishonest or bribable. KJV and YLT's 'filthy' catches the sense of something revolting, but a modern reader may hear 'dirty' or 'obscene'. Neither quite gives the picture of food that has gone off.
- How it drifted
English 'corrupt' originally meant 'rotten, decomposed' (Latin corruptus, 'spoiled, broken up'). Over time it narrowed toward abuse of office and bribery. 'Filthy' has likewise moved toward the sense of 'obscene'.
- Used elsewhere in the period
Job 15:16 sets it beside 'abominable' (נִתְעָב): 'how much less one who is loathsome and gone foul (ne'elaḥ), a man who drinks iniquity like water.' The Septuagint renders the word here ἠχρειώθησαν (ēchreiōthēsan), 'they have become useless or worthless', a slightly different picture taken up by Paul in Rom 3:12.
- Range of meaning
To be corrupted, gone bad, spoiled. BDB and HALOT compare an Arabic cognate used of milk turning sour. It appears only three times in the Hebrew Bible: here, Psalm 14:3 and Psalm 53:3 [Heb 53:4], "together they have become corrupt".
- Against the English
KJV says "filthy", BSB, WEB and ESV "corrupt". "Corrupt" is closer. "Filthy" suggests dirt on the surface, or, to modern ears, obscenity.
- How it drifted
"Filthy" was strong in 1611 but now leans toward dirtiness or crude language, while the Hebrew pictures something that has spoiled from within.
- Used elsewhere in the period
The Greek translation of the Psalms rendered it ēchreiōthēsan, "they have become useless," and Paul quotes that line in Romans 3:12 ("together they have become worthless"). The Latin Vulgate likewise has inutilis, "useless," here in Job.
Where it appears
Job · 1
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Job 15:16 וְֽנֶאֱלָ֑ח and [one who] is corrupt
how much less man, who is vile and corrupt, who drinks injustice like water?
Here: "And gone rotten." A rare verb (only here and in Psalms 14:3 and 53:3) for something that has spoiled or turned sour, like food or milk gone off. It describes a person whose nature has turned bad, not someone who is merely dirty on the outside.
Psalms · 2
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Psalm 14:3 נֶ֫אֱלָ֥חוּ they are corrupt
All have turned away, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.
Here: 'They have gone rotten.' This is a rare verb (only here, Ps 53:4 and Job 15:16) for something that has spoiled or turned foul. The picture is moral rot, not bribery or crime in the modern sense. The verb switches to plural: the 'whole' is now seen as many people, each of them spoiled.
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Psalm 53:3 נֶ֫אֱלָ֥חוּ they are corrupt
All have turned away, they have together become corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.
Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.