Vanity - Or, "a breath driven to and fro of those that are seeking death." Another reading of the last words is: "of the snares of death" (compare 1-Timothy 6:9). Some commentators have suggested that the "vapor" or "mist" is the mirage of the desert, misleading those who follow it, and becoming a "net of death."

Of them that seek death - Instead of מבקשי mebakshey, "them that seek," several MSS., some ancient editions, with Symmachus, the Septuagint, Vulgate, and Arabic, have מקשי mokeshey, the snares. He who gets treasures by a lying tongue, pursues vanity into the snares of death. Our common translation may be as good. But he who, by the snares of his tongue, endeavors to buy and sell to the best advantage, is pursuing what is empty in itself; and he is ensnared by death, while he is attempting to ensnare others.

The getting of treasures by a lying tongue,.... By telling lies in trade; by bearing false witness in a court of judicature; or by preaching false doctrines in the church of God:
is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death: such treasures, though ever so great, are like any light thing, smoke or vapour, straw, stubble, chaff, or a feather, tossed about the wind; which is expressive of the instability uncertainty of riches ill gotten; they do not last long, but are taken away and carried off by one providence or another; and they are likewise harmful and pernicious; they issue in death: and those that seek after them, and obtain them in a bad way, are said to "seek death": not intentionally, but eventually; this they certainly find, if grace prevent not; see Proverbs 8:36. Jarchi reads it, they are the "snares of death" to him; and so the Septuagint version.

While men seek wealth by unlawful practices, they seek death.

The getting--or, "what is obtained" (compare Job 7:2; Jeremiah 22:13, Hebrew).
vanity . . . to and fro--as fleeting as chaff or stubble in the wind (compare Proverbs 20:17-21; Psalm 62:10). Such gettings are unsatisfactory.
them . . . death--act as if they did (Proverbs 8:36; Proverbs 17:19).

6 The gaining of treasures by a lying tongue
Is a fleeting breath of such as seek death.
One may, at any rate, after the free manner of gnomic resemblances and comparisons, regard "fleeting breath" and "such as seek death" as two separated predicates: such gain is fleeting breath, so those who gain are seeking death (Caspari's Beitrge zu Jes. p. 53). But it is also syntactically admissible to interpret the words rendered "seekers of death" as gen.; for such interruptions of the st. constr., as here by נדּף [fleeting], frequently occur, e.g., Isaiah 28:1; Isaiah 32:13; 1-Chronicles 9:13; and that an idea, in spite of such interruption, may be thought of as gen., is seen from the Arab.
(Note: Vid., Friedr. Philippi's Status constructus, p. 17, Anm. 3; and cf. therewith such constructions as (Arab.) mân'u faḍlah âlmanhtâji, i.e., a refuser of the needy, his beneficence = one who denies to the needy his beneficence.)
But the text is unsettled. Symmachus, Syr., Targ., the Venet., and Luther render the phrase מבקשׁי [seekers]; but the lxx and Jerome read מוקשׁי [snares] (cf. 1-Timothy 6:9); this word Rashi also had before him (vid., Norzi), and Kennicott found it in several Codd. Bertheau prefers it, for he translates:is fleeting breath, snares of death; Ewald and Hitzig go further, for, after the lxx, they change the whole proverb into: מות (בּמוקשׁי) הבל רדף אל־מוקשׁי, with פּעל in the first line. But διώκει of the lxx is an incorrect rendering of נדף, which the smuggling in of the ἐπὶ (παγίδας θανάτου) drew after it, without our concluding therefrom that אל־מוקשׁי, or למוקשׁי (Lagarde), lay before the translators; on the contrary, the word which (Cappellus) lay before them, מוקשׁי, certainly deserves to be preferred to מבקשׁי: the possession is first, in view of him who has gotten it, compared to a fleeting (נדּף, as Isaiah 42:2) breath (cf. e.g., smoke, Psalm 68:3), and then, in view of the inheritance itself and its consequences, is compared to the snares of death (Proverbs 13:14; Proverbs 14:27); for in פּעל (here equivalent to עשׂות, acquisitio, Genesis 31:1; Deuteronomy 8:17) lie together the ideas of him who procures and of the thing that is procured or effected (vid., at Proverbs 20:11).

Lying tongue - By any false or deceitful words or actions. Is tossed - Is like the chaff or smoak driven away by the wind. Of them - That take those courses which will bring destruction upon them.