Proverbs 14:25
A true witness delivereth souls: but a deceitful witness speaketh lies.
A true witness delivereth souls,.... Or, "a witness of truth" {x}: one that witnesses truth upon oath in a court of judicature, he "delivers souls"; men, not one man only, but many; a whole family, or more, in danger of being ruined; he delivers them, as the Septuagint and Arabic versions add, "from evils"; from evil charges and accusations brought against them; from the oppression of their enemies, from the loss of their good name, and from ruin and destruction, that otherwise would have come upon them; he delivers their "lives" {y}, as it may be rendered, in danger of being lost by false accusations: so a witness of the truth of Christ, or a faithful minister of the Gospel, not only saves himself, but them that hear him; and is an instrument of delivering the souls of men from error and damnation;
but a deceitful witness speaketh lies; boldly, openly, by wholesale; he blows them out {z}, to the ruin of the good names and characters, and to the destruction of the lives, of the innocent; and so a false teacher, one that lies in wait to deceive, speaks lies in hypocrisy, doctrinal lies, to the ruin of the souls of men. The Targum is,
"he that speaketh lies is deceitful;''
he is "deceit" {a} itself, as in the Hebrew text. Such is the man of sin, and such are his emissaries.
{x} tma de "testis veritatis", Montanus, Cocceius, Schultens.
{y} twvpn "vitas; animam pro vita usurpari notum", Gejerus.
{z} xypy "efflat", Tigurine version, Piscator, Gejerus; "spirat", Schultens; "efflabit", Monatnus.
{a} hmrm "dolus", Montanus, Vatablus; "fraus", Cocceius.