Pro 21:6-7 | KingComments | STEP | “By a lying tongue” ( ) means in a fraudulent way, by telling lies or, by what is called a ‘babbling trick’. For example, it is someone who comes to an elderly person’s door, tells a nice story, and steals the elderly person’s money or debit card and PIN number. He will find that the treasures he has acquired in this way offer him no hold for this life. It is a fleeting vapor, it will be as if it disappears into thin air and dissolves. Added to this, to him it will be “the pursuit of death”. He is not consciously pursue death, but by what he does, he automatically does. Gehazi is an example of such a person ( ). Through his deception he became rich, but also leprous, a disease that leads to death. As a result, he was unable to enjoy his fraudulently acquired treasures, contrary to what he had thought. Ananias and Sapphira paid for their deceit directly with death and were not able to enjoy a minute of their money, which was in reality stolen from God ( ). Wicked people not only speak with a lying tongue ( ), but their actions are violent ( ). They are swept along like will-less animals by their wickedness. They go from devastation to devastation; they cannot help but work destruction everywhere. This will finally lead to their own destruction, “for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword” ( ). They are not the passive victims of their crimes or circumstances, people who cannot help it all either. They act this way “because they refuse to act with justice”. They will only have to blame themselves for their own destruction because they chose not to act with justice and to persevere in evil. In , the father speaks of the two kinds of people there are. In the first line of verse he speaks of “the way of a guilty man”, whom he introduced in , the man who lives without God. In the second line of verse, he speaks of the work of one who is connected to God. “The way of a guilty man” – that is, of a man who refuses to go the straight way of God – “is crooked”. The way of the natural man is full of curves, his whole conduct and walk is full of twists and turns. A crooked way goes against the truth, against the instructions of God’s Word about the right way. It is also a strange way, a way foreign to Scripture, for which there is no indication in Scripture. This way is walked by those who are alien to life from and with God, who have no part in it. Their whole life shows that they belong to “a crooked and perverse generation” ( ). The second line of verse contrasts “way” with “conduct”, “the pure” with “a guilty man” and “upright” with “crooked”. A pure person is one who has been cleansed by faith and is thereby connected to God. He is a pure in heart, as evidenced by his conduct (cf. ). It is an upright conduct because it is upright before God and men.

‏ Proverbs 21:6-7

A Lying Tongue and a Crooked Way

“By a lying tongue” (Pro 21:6) means in a fraudulent way, by telling lies or, by what is called a ‘babbling trick’. For example, it is someone who comes to an elderly person’s door, tells a nice story, and steals the elderly person’s money or debit card and PIN number. He will find that the treasures he has acquired in this way offer him no hold for this life. It is a fleeting vapor, it will be as if it disappears into thin air and dissolves. Added to this, to him it will be “the pursuit of death”. He is not consciously pursue death, but by what he does, he automatically does.

Gehazi is an example of such a person (2Kgs 5:20-27). Through his deception he became rich, but also leprous, a disease that leads to death. As a result, he was unable to enjoy his fraudulently acquired treasures, contrary to what he had thought. Ananias and Sapphira paid for their deceit directly with death and were not able to enjoy a minute of their money, which was in reality stolen from God ( Acts 5:1-11).

Wicked people not only speak with a lying tongue (Pro 21:6), but their actions are violent (Pro 21:7). They are swept along like will-less animals by their wickedness. They go from devastation to devastation; they cannot help but work destruction everywhere. This will finally lead to their own destruction, “for all those who take up the sword shall perish by the sword” (Mt 26:52).

They are not the passive victims of their crimes or circumstances, people who cannot help it all either. They act this way “because they refuse to act with justice”. They will only have to blame themselves for their own destruction because they chose not to act with justice and to persevere in evil.

In Pro 21:8, the father speaks of the two kinds of people there are. In the first line of verse he speaks of “the way of a guilty man”, whom he introduced in Pro 21:6-7, the man who lives without God. In the second line of verse, he speaks of the work of one who is connected to God.

“The way of a guilty man” – that is, of a man who refuses to go the straight way of God – “is crooked”. The way of the natural man is full of curves, his whole conduct and walk is full of twists and turns. A crooked way goes against the truth, against the instructions of God’s Word about the right way. It is also a strange way, a way foreign to Scripture, for which there is no indication in Scripture. This way is walked by those who are alien to life from and with God, who have no part in it. Their whole life shows that they belong to “a crooked and perverse generation” (Phil 2:15).

The second line of verse contrasts “way” with “conduct”, “the pure” with “a guilty man” and “upright” with “crooked”. A pure person is one who has been cleansed by faith and is thereby connected to God. He is a pure in heart, as evidenced by his conduct (cf. Tit 1:15a). It is an upright conduct because it is upright before God and men.