الأمثال ١٢:٦

6 The word of the godless is to lie in wait for the blood of others, But the mouth of the upright delivereth them. Our editions have דברי רשׁעים, but the right sequence of the accents (in Cod. 1294 and elsewhere) is דברי רשׁעים; the logical relation in this transformation, which is only rhythmically conditioned, remains the same. The vocalization wavers between ארב־, which would be imper., and ארב־, which is infin., like אמר־, Pro 25:7, ענשׁ־, Pro 21:11, אכל־, Gen 3:11. However one punctuates it, the infin. is intended in any case, in which the expression always remains sketchy enough: the words of the godless are lying in wait for blood, i.e., they are calculated to bring others to this, into the danger of their lives, e.g., before the tribunal by false charges and false witness. דּם is the accus. of the object; for instead of ארב לדם (Pro 1:11), to lurk for blood, a shorter expression, ארב דּם, is used (Ewald, 282a). The suffix of יצּילם (Note: Elias Levita, in his note to the root פה in Kimchi's Wrterbuch, reads תּצּילם, and so also do 6 codd. in Kennicot. But פּה is masculine.) might appear, after Pro 11:6, to refer back to the ישׁרים; but the thought that their mouth saves the upright, that they thus know to speak themselves out of the danger, is by far less appropriate (vid., on the contrary, בדעת, Pro 11:9) than the thought that the mouth of the upright delivereth from danger those whose lives are threatened by the godless, as is rightly explained by Ewald, Bertheau, Elster. The personal subject or object is in the Mashal style often to be evolved from the connection, e.g., Pro 14:26; Pro 19:23.

In the foregoing verse the thoughts of the wicked and righteous were compared; here their words, and those are as the abundance of the heart is. 1. Wicked people speak mischief to their neighbours; and wicked indeed those are whose words are to lie in wait for blood; their tongues are swords to those that stand in their way, to good men whom they hate and persecute. See an instance, Luk 20:20, Luk 20:21. 2. Good men speak help to their neighbours: The mouth of the upright is ready to be opened in the cause of those that are oppressed (Pro 31:8), to plead for them, to witness for them, and so to deliver them, particularly those whom the wicked lie in wait for. A man may sometimes do a very good work with one good word.