Proverbs 21:6 - Exposition

The getting of treasures by a lying tongue —the acquisition of wealth by fraud and falsehood— is a vanity tossed to and fro of them that seek death . The latter clause is variously rendered and interpreted. The Hebrew is literally, a fleeting breath, those seeking death. The Revised Version makes the last words a separate proposition, "They that seek them seek death." But this seems unnecessary, and somewhat opposed to the gnomic style, which often combines two predicates in one construction; and there is no reason why we should not render the words, as in the Authorized Version, "of seekers of death." Such a mode of obtaining wealth is as evanescent and unstable as the very breath, and ends in death, which is practically the result of their quest. Thus Wis. 5:14, "The hope of the ungodly is like dust that is blown away with the wind; like a thin froth that is driven away with the storm; like as the smoke which is dispersed here and there with the tempest, and passeth away. as the remembrance of a guest that tarrieth but a day." Some think that the comparison regards the mirage of the desert, which deceives travellers with the phantasms of cool waters and refreshing shade. Such an allusion is found in Isaiah 35:7 . The Talmud enjoins, "Speak no word that accords not with the truth, that thy honour may not vanish as the waters of a brook." The Septuagint and Vulgate have followed a different reading ( מוק שׁי־מות ), and render thus: Vulgate, Vanus et excors est, et impingetur ad laqueos mortis, "He is vain and foolish, and will be taken in the snares of death;" Septuagint, "pursues vain things unto the snares of death ( ἐπὶ παγίδας )" ( Proverbs 13:14 ; Proverbs 14:27 ). So St. Paul says ( 1 Timothy 6:9 ), "They that desire to be rich fall into a into a temptation and a snare ( παγίδα ), and many foolish and hurtful lusts, such as drown men in destruction and perdition."