Proverbs 19:9

A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall perish.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

19:3. Men run into troubles by their own folly, and then fret at the appointments of God. 4. Here we may see how strong is men's love of money. 5. Those that tell lies in discourse, are in a fair way to be guilty of bearing false-witness. 6. We are without excuse if we do not love God with all our hearts. His gifts to us are past number, and all the gifts of men to us are fruits of his bounty. 7. Christ was left by all his disciples; but the Father was with him. It encourages our faith that he had so large an experience of the sorrows of poverty. 8. Those only love their souls aright that get true wisdom. 9. Lying is a damning, destroying sin. 10. A man that has not wisdom and grace, has no right or title to true joy. It is very unseemly for one who is a servant to sin, to oppress God's free-men.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Wisdom - literally, as in the margin, to gain a "heart," i. e., the higher faculties both of reason and feeling, is identical with gaining wisdom, i. e., the faculty which seeks and finds.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

8. (Compare Margin; Pr 15:32).

loveth … soul—or, "himself," which he evinces by regarding his best interests.

keepeth—or, "regards."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

This was said before, Proverbs 19:5, and seems to be here repeated, either for its great use and weight in human society, and to show how much God abhors such practices; or to show the pernicious effects of this sin, and consequently of all other sins, one eminent kind being put for all the rest, and this in opposition to the good effects of wisdom or piety, which he declared in the foregoing verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

A false witness shall not be unpunished,.... See Gill on Proverbs 19:5;

and he that speaketh lies shall perish; or "be lost", shall be undone for ever; he shall not enter into the holy city, but have his part in the lake of fire: they that speak lies in hypocrisy, doctrinal ones, and are given up to believe and profess them, such shall be damned, 2 Thessalonians 2:11.

Geneva Study Bible

A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he that speaketh lies shall perish.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. shall perish] We have, shall not escape, in the otherwise identical proverb of Proverbs 19:5 above.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 9. - A repetition of ver. 5, except that shall perish is substituted for "shall not escape." Septuagint, "And whosoever shall kindle mischief shall perish by it." The Greek translators have rendered the special reference in the original to slanderers and liars by a general term, and introduced the notion of Divine retribution, which is not definitely expressed in the Hebrew. Proverbs 19:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The group of proverbs (Proverbs 19:9-16) now following begins and closes in the same way as the preceding.

9 A lying witness doth not remain unpunished,

   And one who breathes out lies perisheth,

or goeth to ruin, for אבד (R. בד, to divide, separate) signifies to lose oneself in the place of the separated, the dead (Arab. in the infinite). In Proverbs 19:5, instead of this ἀπολεῖται (lxx), the negative οὐ σωθήσεται is used, or as the lxx there more accurately renders it, οὐ διαφεύξεται.