Proverbs 6:19

6:12-19 If the slothful are to be condemned, who do nothing, much more those that do all the ill they can. Observe how such a man is described. He says and does every thing artfully, and with design. His ruin shall come without warning, and without relief. Here is a list of things hateful to God. Those sins are in a special manner provoking to God, which are hurtful to the comfort of human life. These things which God hates, we must hate in ourselves; it is nothing to hate them in others. Let us shun all such practices, and watch and pray against them; and avoid, with marked disapproval, all who are guilty of them, whatever may be their rank.

A false witness that speaketh lies,.... Or, "that speaketh lies, even a false witness" (f); and so this is distinguished from a lying tongue, the second of these evils: this is the sin of bearing false witness against one's neighbour, a breach of the eighth command. It may be rendered, "he that bloweth lies" (g); that raises lies, and spreads them abroad, and swears to them, to the damage of others. This makes the sixth; and the seventh follows, and him that soweth discord among brethren; whether in a natural relation, or in a civil society, or in a religious community. (f) So Vatablus, Mercerus, &c. (g) "qui efflat mendacia", Piscator, Michaelis.

A new section, but not a new subject. The closing words, "he that soweth discord" ( Proverbs 6:19 , compare Proverbs 6:14 ), lead us to identify the sketch as taken from the same character. With the recognized Hebrew form of climax (see Proverbs 30:15 , Proverbs 30:18 , Proverbs 30:24 ; Amos 1:1-15 ; 2; Job 5:19 ), the teacher here enumerates six qualities as detestable, and the seventh as worse than all (seven represents completeness), but all the seven in this instance belong to one man, the man of Belial Proverbs 6:12 .

Verse 19. - The sixth thing is perjury. A false witness that speaketh lies; literally, he that breathes out, or utters, lies as a false witness. So the Vulgate, proferentem mendacia testem fallacem. The Hebrew puakh is "to breathe," "to blow," and in the hiph. form, which is used here ( yaphiakh , hiph. future), it is "to blow out" or" utter," either in a bad sense, as in the present instance, and in Proverbs 6:19 ; Proverbs 14:5 ; Proverbs 19:5, 9 (cf. Psalm 10:5 ; Psalm 12:5 ); or in a good sense, "to utter the truth," as in Proverbs 12:17 . Lies ; Hebrew k'zavim , plural of kazav , "falsehood," "lying" (cf. Proverbs 21:25 ). A false witness (Hebrew, ed-k'zavim ), as in margin, "a witness of lies." The expression, "as a false witness," as it appears in the original, is explanatory, and indicates the particular aspect under which the speaking of lies is regarded. Lying in its more general sense has been already spoken of in ver. 17. The vice which is here noted as odious to God is expressly forbidden in the moral code, "Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbour" ( Exodus 20:16 ). But this, though the chief, is only one view of the case.

Perjury may be employed, not only in ruining the innocent, but also in screen-tog the guilty. "Much hurt," says Muffet, in loc. , "doth the deceitful and lying witness, for he corrupteth the judge, oppresseth the innocent, suppresseth the truth, and in the courts of justice sinneth against his own soul and the Lord himself most grievously." "He that speaketh lies as a false witness," again, may be the vile instrument in the hands of unscrupulous and inexorable enemies, as those employed against our Lord and Stephen. Perjury, too, destroys the security of communities. The shipwreck of society which it occasions may be seen in the frightful misery which ensued when the system of delatores was not only countenanced, but encouraged under the Roman empire. Truly speaking, he that lies as a false witness must be hateful to God. And he that soweth discord among brethren; the seventh and last thing in the enumeration, but not, as Delitzsch holds, the ne plus ultra of all that is hated of God. It closes, as in ver. 14, the series, but with the addition "among brethren;" thus emphatically stigmatizing the conduct of that man as diabolical who destroys the harmony and unity of those who ought to live together in brotherly affection, and who disturbs the peace of communities. Proverbs 6:19

The sixth: "A speaker of lies, a tongue of falsehood," is hateful to God. It is one subject which is thus doubly characterized. כּזבים are fictions, and שׁקר is the disfiguring (deformatio) of the actual facts. They are purposely placed together in this connection. The derivations of these synonyms are obscure; Frst gives to the former the root-idea of spinning (properly knotting together), and to the latter that of painting. כזבים is introduced to support שׁקר. (Note: Isaak Albo thus distinguishes these synonyms in his dogmatic, bearing the title ספר עקרים, ii.27.) It would also be verbally permissible to interpret עד שׁקר in the sense of עדוּת שׁקר, like Proverbs 25:18, as in apposition to כזבים; but in the nearest parallel, Proverbs 14:15, the idea is personal, for it is said of the עד שׁקר that he breathes out lies. In that place there can be no doubt that the clause is a verbal one, and יפיח finitum, viz., Hiph. of פּוּח. This Hiph. signifies elsewhere also sufflare, Proverbs 20:8, afflare, Psalm 10:5; Ezekiel 21:26, perflare, Sol 4:16, anhelare (desiderare), Psalm 12:6; Habakkuk 2:3, but with כזבים, efflare, a synonym to דּבּר, as הבּיע and הטּיף, which has (cf. Proverbs 12:17) no secondary meaning in use, but is mostly connected with כזבים, not without reference to the fact that that which is false is without reality and is nothing more than הבל ורוח.

But what kind of a form is יפיח, where it is not, as Proverbs 14:5, the predicate of a verbal clause, but in connection with כזבים, as here and at Proverbs 14:25; Proverbs 19:5, Proverbs 19:9 (once with אמונה, Proverbs 12:17), is the subject of a substantival clause? That which lies nearest is to regard it as a noun formed from the fut. Hiph. Such formations we indeed meet only among proper names, such as יאיר, יכין, יקים; however, at least the one n. appell. יריב (an adversary) is found, which may be formed from the Hiph. as well as from the Kal. But should not the constr. of יפיח after the form יריב be יפיח? One does not escape from this consideration by deriving יפיח, after the forms יגיע, יחיל, ידיד, ישׁישׁ, and the like, from a secondary verb יפח, the existence of which is confirmed by Jeremiah 4:31, and from which also יפח, Psalm 27:12, appears to be derived, although it may be reduced also, after the form ירב (with יריב), to הפיח. But in this case also one expects as a connecting form יפיח like ידיד, as in reality יפח from יפח (cf. אבל, שׂמהי, from אבל, שׂמח). Shall it now be assumed that the Kametz is treated as fixed? This were contrary to rule, since it is not naturally long. Thus the connection is not that of the genitive.