13 An evil man is trapped by sinfulness of lips, but the righteous shall come out of trouble.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The wicked is snared by the transgression of his lips - A man who deals in lies and false oaths will sooner or later be found out to his own ruin. There is another proverb as true as this: A liar had need of a good memory; for as the truth is not in him, he says and unsays, and often contradicts himself.
The wicked is snared by the transgression of his lips,.... A wicked man often brings himself into trouble by giving his tongue too great a liberty, and by making free with the characters of others; sometimes by treasonable speeches against his sovereign; sometimes by bearing false Witness, and by lies and perjuries, of which he is convicted in open court; and by calumnies, reproaches, detraction, and scandal raised by him, and cast on his neighbour, who sues him for these things: or "in the transgression of the lips is an evil snare"; or "the snare of an evil man" (y); by the wicked things they say they lay a snare for others, which the simple and incautious are taken in; so heretics ensnare men by their good words and fair speeches, and plausibility of their doctrines; so antichrist, by lies in hypocrisy, and by his deceivableness of unrighteousness;
but the just shall come out of trouble; or escape it; he escapes the snare that is laid for him, and so the trouble consequent upon it; a just man escapes trouble by not giving his tongue the liberty wicked men do; and when he by any means falls into trouble, he gets out of it again by giving good words to those in whose hands he is; and by his prayers and supplications unto God. The righteous are sometimes in trouble, and in such sort of trouble as others are not; by reason of their own corruptions, Satan's temptations, the hidings of God's face, as well as various outward afflictions; out of all which the Lord delivers them sooner or later, in life or in death, Psalm 34:19. Jarchi exemplifies this in the case of righteous Noah, who escaped the flood, when the world of the ungodly were destroyed by it, for the transgression of their lips, saying, as in Job 21:15, "what is the Almighty?" &c.
(y) "in praevaricatione labiorum laqueos malus", Montanus, Michaelis, Schultens, so Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius; "vel laqueus hominis mali", Mercerus, Gejerus.
Many a man has paid dear in this world for the transgression of his lips.
The wicked is snared, &c.--The sentiment expanded. While the wicked, such as liars, flatterers, &c., fall by their own words, the righteous are unhurt. Their good conduct makes friends, and God rewards them.
Proverbs regarding injurious and beneficial words, wise hearing and prudent silence.
13 In the transgression of the lips there lies a dangerous snare;
The righteous escapeth from trouble.
The consecutive modus (ויּצא) is here of greater weight than e.g., at Proverbs 11:8, where the connection follows without it (ויּבא) from the idea of the change of place. The translation: but the righteous restores ויצא (ויצא), and ignores the syllogistic relation of the members of the proverb, which shows itself here (cf. the contrary, Proverbs 11:9) to a certain degree by ויּצא. Ewald displaces this relation, for he paraphrases: "any one may easily come into great danger by means of inconsiderate words; yet it is to be hoped that the righteous may escape, for he will guard himself against evil from the beginning." He is right here in interpreting צרה and מוקשׁ רע as the designation of danger into which one is betrayed by the transgressions of his lips, but "inconsiderate words" are less than פּשׁע שׂפתים. One must not be misled into connecting with פּשׁע the idea of missing, or a false step, from the circumstance that פּשׁע means a step; both verbs have, it is true, the common R. פש with the fundamental idea of placing apart or separating, but פּשׁע has nothing to do with פּשׁע (step = placing apart of the legs), but denotes (as Arab. fusuwḳ fisḳ, from the primary meaning diruptio, diremtio) a sinning, breaking through and breaking off the relation to God (cf. e.g., Proverbs 28:24), or even the restraints of morality (Proverbs 10:19). Such a sinning, which fastens itself to, and runs even among the righteous, would not be called פשׁע, but rather חטּאת (Proverbs 20:9). According to this the proverb will mean that sinful words bring into extreme danger every one who indulges in them - a danger which he can with difficulty escape; and that thus the righteous, who guards himself against sinful words, escapes from the distress (cf. with the expression, Ecclesiastes 7:18) into which one is thereby betrayed. רע is the descriptive and expressive epithet to מוקשׁ (cf. Ecclesiastes 9:12): a bad false trap, a malicious snare, for מוקשׁ is the snare which closes together and catches the bird by the feet. This proverb is repeated at Proverbs 29:6, peculiarly remodelled. The lxx has after Proverbs 12:13 another distich:
He who is of mild countenance findeth mercy;
He who is litigious oppresseth souls.
(נפשׁות, or rather, more in accordance with the Hebrew original: oppresseth himself, נפשׁו.)
*More commentary available at chapter level.