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.
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.
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.