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 19:5

19:5 A false witness ⁴  will not go unpunished,

and the one who spouts out ⁵  lies will not escape punishment. ⁶ 

Proverbs 19:9

19:9 A false witness will not go unpunished,

and the one who spouts out ⁷  lies will perish. ⁸ 

Proverbs 25:18

25:18 Like a club or a sword or a sharp arrow, ⁹ 

so is the one who testifies against ¹⁰  his neighbor as a false witness. ¹¹ 

Exodus 23:1

Justice

23:1 ¹² “You must not give ¹³  a false report. ¹⁴  Do not make common cause ¹⁵  with the wicked ¹⁶  to be a malicious ¹⁷  witness.

Deuteronomy 19:16-19

19:16 If a false ¹⁸  witness testifies against another person and accuses him of a crime, ¹⁹  19:17 then both parties to the controversy must stand before the Lord, that is, before the priests and judges ²⁰  who will be in office in those days. 19:18 The judges will thoroughly investigate the matter, and if the witness should prove to be false and to have given false testimony against the accused, ²¹  19:19 you must do to him what he had intended to do to the accused. In this way you will purge ²²  evil from among you.

[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.”

[19:5]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ tn Heb “breathes out”; NAB “utters”; NIV “pours out.”

[19:5]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tn Heb “breathes out”; NAB “utters”; NIV “pours out.”

[19:9]  ⁸ 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”).

[25:18]  ⁹ sn The first line identifies the emblem of the proverb: False witnesses are here compared to deadly weapons because they can cause the death of innocent people (e.g., Exod 20:16; Deut 5:20; and Prov 14:5).

[25:18]  ¹⁰ tn The verb עָנָה (’anah) followed by the preposition בְּ (bet) with its object means “to testify against” (answer against someone). With the preposition לְ (lamed) it would mean “to testify for” someone. Here the false witness is an adversary, hence the comparison with deadly weapons.

[25:18]  ¹¹ tn While עֵד (’ed) could be interpreted as “evidence” (a meaning that came from a metonymy – what the witness gives in court), its normal meaning is “witness.” Here it would function as an adverbial accusative, specifying how he would answer in court.

[23:1]  ¹² sn People who claim to worship and serve the righteous judge of the universe must preserve equity and justice in their dealings with others. These verses teach that God’s people must be honest witnesses (1-3); God’s people must be righteous even with enemies (4-5); and God’s people must be fair in dispensing justice (6-9).

[23:1]  ¹³ tn Heb “take up, lift, carry” (נָשָׂא, nasa’). This verb was also used in the prohibition against taking “the name of Yahweh in vain.” Sometimes the object of this verb is physical, as in Jonah 1:12 and 15. Used in this prohibition involving speech, it covers both originating and repeating a lie.

[23:1]  ¹⁴ tn Or “a groundless report” (see Exod 20:7 for the word שָׁוְא, shav’).

[23:1]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “do not put your hand” (cf. KJV, ASV); NASB “join your hand.”

[23:1]  ¹⁶ tn The word “wicked” (רָשָׁע, rasha’) refers to the guilty criminal, the person who is doing something wrong. In the religious setting it describes the person who is not a member of the covenant and may be involved in all kinds of sin, even though there is the appearance of moral and spiritual stability.

[23:1]  ¹⁷ tn The word חָמָס (khamas) often means “violence” in the sense of social injustices done to other people, usually the poor and needy. A “malicious” witness would do great harm to others. See J. W. McKay, “Exodus 23:1-43, 6-8: A Decalogue for Administration of Justice in the City Gate,” VT 21 (1971): 311-25.

[19:16]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “violent” (חָמָס, khamas). This is a witness whose motivation from the beginning is to do harm to the accused and who, therefore, resorts to calumny and deceit. See I. Swart and C. VanDam, NIDOTTE 2:177-80.

[19:16]  ¹⁹ tn Or “rebellion.” Rebellion against God’s law is in view (cf. NAB “of a defection from the law”).

[19:17]  ²⁰ tn The appositional construction (“before the Lord, that is, before the priests and judges”) indicates that these human agents represented the Lord himself, that is, they stood in his place (cf. Deut 16:18-20; 17:8-9).

[19:18]  ²¹ tn Heb “his brother” (also in the following verse).

[19:19]  ²² tn Heb “you will burn out” (בִּעַרְתָּ, bi’arta). Like a cancer, unavenged sin would infect the whole community. It must, therefore, be excised by the purging out of its perpetrators who, presumably, remained unrepentant (cf. Deut 13:6; 17:7, 12; 21:21; 22:21-22, 24; 24:7).