Proverbs 6:19

6:19 a false witness who pours out lies, ¹ 

and a person who spreads discord ²  among family members. ³ 

Proverbs 14:5

14:5 A truthful witness ⁴  does not lie,

but a false witness ⁵  breathes out lies. ⁶ 

Proverbs 14:25

14:25 A truthful witness ⁷  rescues lives, ⁸ 

but the one who breathes lies brings ⁹  deception. ¹⁰ 

Proverbs 19:5

19:5 A false witness ¹¹  will not go unpunished,

and the one who spouts out ¹²  lies will not escape punishment. ¹³ 

Proverbs 19:9

19:9 A false witness will not go unpunished,

and the one who spouts out ¹⁴  lies will perish. ¹⁵ 

Proverbs 19:22

19:22 What is desirable ¹⁶  for a person is to show loyal love, ¹⁷ 

and a poor person is better than a liar. ¹⁸ 

Proverbs 21:28

21:28 A lying witness ¹⁹  will perish, ²⁰ 

but the one who reports accurately speaks forever. ²¹ 

[6:19]  ¹ sn The Lord hates perjury and a lying witness (e.g., Ps 40:4; Amos 2:4; Mic 1:4). This is a direct violation of the law (Exod 20).

[6:19]  ² sn Dissension is attributed in Proverbs to contentious people (21:9; 26:21; 25:24) who have a short fuse (15:8).

[6:19]  ³ tn Heb “brothers,” although not limited to male siblings only. Cf. NRSV, CEV “in a family”; TEV “among friends.”

[14:5]  ⁴ tn Heb “a witness of faithfulness.” The genitive functions in an attributive sense: “faithful witness” (so KJV, NRSV); TEV “reliable witness.”

[14:5]  ⁵ tn Heb “a witness of falsehood.” The genitive functions in an attributive sense: “false witness.”

[14:5]  ⁶ sn This saying addresses the problem of legal testimony: A faithful witness does not lie, but a false witness does lie – naturally. The first colon uses the verb כָּזַב (kazav, “to lie”) and the second colon uses the noun כָּזָב (kazav, “lie; falsehood”).

[14:25]  ⁷ tn Heb “a witness of truth”; cf. CEV “an honest witness.”

[14:25]  ⁸ tn The noun נְפָשׁוֹת (nÿfashot) often means “souls,” but here “lives” – it functions as a metonymy for life (BDB 659 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 3.c).

[14:25]  ⁹ tn The term “brings” does not appear in the Hebrew but is supplied in the translation for the sake of clarity. Also possible, “is deceitful.”

[14:25]  ¹⁰ tc Several commentators suggest emending the text from the noun מִרְמָה (mirmah, “deception”) to the participle מְרַמֶּה (mÿrameh, “destroys”). However, this revocalization is not necessary because the MT makes sense as it stands: A false witness destroys lives.

[19:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “a witness of lies.” This expression is an attributive genitive: “a lying witness” (cf. CEV “dishonest witnesses”). This is paralleled by “the one who pours out lies.”

[19:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “breathes out”; NAB “utters”; NIV “pours out.”

[19:5]  ¹² tn Heb “will not escape” (so NAB, NASB); NIV “will not go free.” Here “punishment” is implied, and has been supplied in the translation for clarity.

[19:9]  ¹³ tn Heb “breathes out”; NAB “utters”; NIV “pours out.”

[19:9]  ¹⁴ sn The verse is the same as v. 5, except that the last word changes to the verb “will perish” (cf. NCV “will die”; CEV, NLT “will be destroyed”; TEV “is doomed”).

[19:22]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “the desire of a man” (so KJV). The noun in construct is תַּאֲוַת (ta’avat), “desire [of].” Here it refers to “the desire of a man [= person].” Two problems surface here, the connotation of the word and the kind of genitive. “Desire” can also be translated “lust,” and so J. H. Greenstone has “The lust of a man is his shame” (Proverbs, 208). But the sentence is more likely positive in view of the more common uses of the words. “Man” could be a genitive of possession or subjective genitive – the man desires loyal love. It could also be an objective genitive, meaning “what is desired for a man.” The first would be the more natural in the proverb, which is showing that loyal love is better than wealth.

[19:22]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “[is] his loyal love”; NIV “unfailing love”; NRSV “loyalty.”

[19:22]  ¹⁸ sn The second half of the proverb presents the logical inference: The liar would be without “loyal love” entirely, and so poverty would be better than this. A poor person who wishes to do better is preferable to a person who makes promises and does not keep them.

[21:28]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “a witness of lies,” an attributive genitive.

[21:28]  ²⁰ tn The Hebrew verb translated “will perish” (יֹאבֵד, yo’bed) could mean that the false witness will die, either by the hand of God or by the community. But it also could be taken in the sense that the false testimony will be destroyed. This would mean that “false witness” would be a metonymy of cause – what he says will perish (cf. NCV “will be forgotten”).

[21:28]  ²¹ tn Heb “but a man who listens speaks forever.” The first part of it may mean (1) a true witness, one who reports what he actually hears. But it may also refer to (2) someone who listens to the false testimony given by the false witness. The NIV follows the suggestion of a homonym for the Hebrew word with the meaning “will perish/be destroyed”: “will be destroyed forever.” This suggests a synonymous pair of ideas rather than a contrast. Others accept antithetical parallelism. C. H. Toy suggested an idea like “be established” to contrast with “will perish” (Proverbs [ICC], 411). W. McKane suggested it meant the truthful witness “will speak to the end” without being put down (Proverbs [OTL], 556). It is simpler to interpret the words that are here in the sense of a contrast. The idea of speaking forever/to the end would then be hyperbolic.