Proverbs 12:13-23

The liar's tongue is the trap he himself ends up in: the first lie must be defended by a second, the second by a third — until one day he falls over a lie he had left somewhere and forgotten, and flounders like a wild beast in a snare. Many a man has felt the lash on his back for want of a bridle on his tongue. And mark the honest comfort in the second clause: it does not say the just man never falls into trouble — only that he comes out.

Words and works both come back to their owner — good ones too. The encouragement you spoke, the truth you told, the work your hands did honestly: rendered back, down to the cup of cold water the Lord promised would not lose its reward (Matthew 10:42) — a recompense of grace, in the world where "by thy words thou shalt be justified" (Matthew 12:37).

The fool's most dangerous feature is not his folly but his certainty. A man may be on the road to hell and think he is fair for heaven — a man is not a competent judge of himself; the ones sinking into the deepest danger dream of the greatest safety. The wise man's tell is structural: he has people who can tell him no, and he listens to them. Pray the old prayer: Lord, save me from myself.

The fool runs zero seconds between offense and eruption — like tow, soon kindled; like a shallow pot, soon boiling. (One ancient ruler was counseled to recite the alphabet before answering in anger — the advice has not expired.) The prudent man "covereth shame": absorbs the insult, declines the bait, and walks off with the only victory available in most quarrels — the one over himself. Passionate anger is not a power of the soul; it is an impotency.

Watch the subtle counterfeit: Doeg destroyed the priests of Nob with facts — he stated what happened and salted it with his own perverse spin (1 Samuel 22). Technically true and totally false is the most dangerous testimony there is. Truth-telling is more than accuracy; it is accuracy in the service of righteousness.

Many will speak daggers without compunction who would be terrified to use one — but the wound count is the same. The cruel-witted man must have his joke, cost what it may; if it glitters, that's enough — and to the heart it will go, where the utterance of a moment can embitter the future of a lifetime. The wise tongue is the opposite instrument: health — words that close wounds instead of opening them. Every man carries one blade or one balm everywhere he goes.

Truth has eternity on its side; a lie has a shelf life — "no lie reaches old age," ran the old saying. Total the ledger: eternity is at once the gain of truth and the cost of a lie. No deal that trades those two ever penciled.

The schemer's own heart is the first thing his deceit poisons — the deceiver is always his own chiefest dupe. The counsellors of peace — the men who talk neighbors down, reconcile brothers, defuse the room — get joy, their own and everyone's they manufacture. Joy is the overflow of peace.

Read this with both eyes open. Abel, Joseph, Job, and the martyrs were just, and plenty "happened" to them — so the verse cannot mean immunity. It means what Romans 8:28 means: nothing that reaches the just man is allowed to be, finally, evil to him — his afflictions are not penal but probational, not mortal but medicinal, the furnace molding him into the image of his Lord. It is the Romans 8:28 promise in proverb form — and a very precious text; why is it not more quoted?

The chapter 11 scales again, applied to the tongue: abomination, delight. And notice the second clause quietly widens from lips to dealing — honesty is just truth in conduct, and truth is honesty in words; God audits both as one account. Herbert's couplet has never been beaten: "Dare to be true; nothing can need a lie: a fault which needs it most grows two thereby."

Concealing knowledge isn't secrecy — it's timing: the prudent man holds what he knows until the right place, the right time, and the right hearer. The ointment kept close in the box pours out sweeter for the keeping. The fool, having nothing in storage, broadcasts his inventory continuously — and it shows.