Bible Dictionary
DROP, DROPPING
To drop means to fall or drip in drops, as honey, rain, or another liquid. Scripture also uses continual dripping from a leaking roof as a picture of persistent irritation.
Definition
To drop means to fall or drip in drops, as honey, rain, or another liquid. Dropping may also describe the continual fall of water through a leaking roof. The image emphasizes repeated, irritating dripping rather than a single fall.
Biblical Usage
Scripture uses dropping for dew, rain, honey, and other liquids. Proverbs compares the unceasing dripping of a leaking roof on a rainy day with the irritation caused by a contentious wife.
Historical Background
Roofs in Palestine were commonly made of clay and were liable to cracks and leakage. This explains the familiar image of persistent water dropping through a roof during heavy rain.
Historical Bible Dictionaries
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (ISBE)
<p>"To drop" expresses a "distilling" or "dripping" of a fluid (Jud 5:4; Pr 3:20; So 5:5,13; Joe 3:18; Am 9:13; compare 1Sa 14:26, "the honey dropped" (margin "a stream of honey")); Job 29:22 and Isa 45:8 read "distil" (the King James Version "drop"). The continuous "droppings" of rain through a leaking roof (roofs were usually made of clay in Palestine, and always liable to cracks and leakage) on a "very rainy day" is compared to a contentious wife (Pr 19:13; 27:15); "What is described is the irritating, unceasing, sound of the fall, drop after drop, of water through the chinks in the roof" (Plumptre, in the place cited); compare also the King James Version Ec 10:18 (the Revised Version (British and American) "leaketh").</p>