Proverbs 14:5 Commentary and Bible Study

The picture is from a law court. Here are two very different witnesses. One has great respect for the court. The environment of the law court rather makes him tremble and he has a sense of occasion. He is very nervous of this and the fact that he is under oath in a law court, and so he will stick scrupulously to what he has actually seen and will be very careful not to depart from that, not to exaggerate, not to leave anything out. It is a picture of the effect which a law court will have upon a reasonably wholesome person. He dare not alter anything because he considers the judge to be a person of honour and the law to be of supreme authority. He is glad that the purpose of the court is to get at the truth and rejoices to play a small part in this to the best of his ability. Perhaps he may cut corners with the facts in private but his awe of the courts will not let him do so there. But another witness is there to bend the truth and to influence events for the benefit of himself or some other party. He will quite happily construct a version of the facts which he knows is not accurate because it will bring harm to someone he hates, or it will avoid punishment and bring him undeserved honour. He does not have a sense of the sacredness of the truth. Indeed the language suggests that there is an inevitability about his tendency to lie; it is what he does because that is his nature and every nature seeks to express itself. The word used means to ‘breathe out’ and certainly refers to speech but indicates that lies come out of the man as constantly and as naturally as breath comes out of his mouth.