Job 20:13
“though he spare it, and will not let it go, but keep it still within his mouth;”
What does Job 20:13 mean?
Zophar is describing how a wicked person clings to sin like someone savoring poison on their tongue, unable or unwilling to spit it out. The image is visceral: rather than rejecting wrongdoing once they taste its bitterness, they hold onto it, swallow it down, and let it stay inside them. It captures how sin can become almost addictive, how we sometimes know something is destroying us yet choose to keep grasping it anyway. Zophar's point is that this stubborn refusal to let go of wrongdoing inevitably leads to pain, because destructive choices have consequences we cannot escape no matter how tightly we hold on.