DROP, DROPPING

"To drop" expresses a "distilling" or "dripping" of a fluid (Judges 5:4; Proverbs 3:20; Song of Solomon 5:5,13; Joel 3:18; Amos 9:13; compare 1 Samuel 14:26, "the honey dropped" (margin "a stream of honey")); Job 29:22 and Isaiah 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 (Proverbs 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 Ecclesiastes 10:18 (the Revised Version (British and American) "leaketh").

From the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Edited by James Orr, published in 1939 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.