Proverbs 6:13 Commentary and Bible Study

He winks with his eyes – eye language goes on a lot, knowing looks, knowing winks, the ‘I have got something special for you’ type of touch. He speaks with his feet. The experts seem to divide mainly into three or four ideas about what that means, but it may mean, as one group suggest, that he is always in a desperate hurry to do business, and always in a desperate hurry to get away afterwards. It may be that the feet too came into a lot of body language in those days, stamping and shuffling and pointing of the toes. You could see your toes in those days, it was an age of sandals, and maybe even the toes, let alone the fingers got in on the act of all the manipulative persuasive language of the dodgy salesman. ‘He teacheth with his fingers’ - he is a most demonstrative person. And the ancients always used to observe that the more demonstrative a person, the more unreliable. We do not hold to that too hard and fast in modern culture. The person who is all hands and gestures and everything to feel badly about this. In fact that is usually the preacher. But in those days the person who spoke with his fingers, was the person not to be believed – an exaggerating demonstrative person.