FOR THE DIRECTOR of music. According to sheminith. A psalm of David.
1Help, LORD, for the godly are no more;
the faithful have vanished from among men.
2Everyone lies to his neighbor;
their flattering lips speak with deception.
3May the LORD cut off all flattering lips
and every boastful tongue
4that says, “We will triumph with our tongues;
we own our lips—who is our master?”
5“Because of the oppression of the weak
and the groaning of the needy,
I will now arise,” says the LORD.
“I will protect them from those who malign them.”
6And the words of the LORD are flawless,
like silver refined in a furnace of clay,
purified seven times.
7O LORD, you will keep us safe
and protect us from such people forever.
8The wicked freely strut about
when what is vile is honored among men.
Original Meaning
LIKE THE PRECEDING PSALM, Psalm 12 is a plea for deliverance, though here the psalmist speaks in the first-person plural (“we/us”), representing the community. Also like Psalm 11, evil appears endemic and the suffering of the faithful extreme. The psalmist’s primary complaint has to do with lies and deceptively flattering speech with which the enemy maligns the weak and needy. Verse 6 draws a striking contrast between the deceptive words of the wicked and the flawless words of Yahweh.
The psalm opens with a description of what motivates the complaint (12:1–2) and continues with a plea for divine action, specifically directed to the offense of lying and deception (12:3–4). Yahweh promises intervention in behalf of the weak and needy (12:5), and the psalmist feels confident that Yahweh will deliver as promised—describing Yahweh’s “flawless” words as the basis for that confidence (12:6–7). The psalm concludes by returning to the circumstances of oppression that occasion the complaint and serve as motivation for Yahweh’s intervention (12:8).
The Heading (12:0)
THE HEADING REFERS this psalm to “the director of music”1 and describes the psalm as a mizmor of David.2 As in the heading of Psalm 6, the term haššeminit (“According to sheminith”) most likely refers to an appropriate tuning of the harp to accompany the performance of the psalm.
Grounds of Complaint (12:1–2)
THE PSALMIST DRIVES home the description of the circumstances that occasion the complaint in the language of hyperbole. The godly no longer exist. The faithful have vanished. Lying and deception are universal. By this tactic the psalmist (who must be accounted among the “godly . . . faithful”) heightens the sense of oppression experienced (it’s everywhere) and leaves God little choice but to act. The circumstance is similar to that in Genesis 18, where Abraham pleads with God for the deliverance of Sodom and Gomorrah from destruction if only ten righteous persons are found dwelling there—but none are found.
The psalmist’s focus is on lying and deceit used to malign and exploit the weak and needy for the benefit of the deceitful. These manipulators of words place great stock in their ability to twist and control language for their own purposes (12:4); but in reality, says the psalmist, they speak not so much “lies” (which would use the Heb. šeqer) but šawʿ (“deception,” that which is “worthless” or empty of meaning). This sets up a contrast between the empty words of the boastful wicked and the “flawless” and effective words of Yahweh in 12:6.
Flattering lips. The Hebrew behind this phrase (śepat ḥalaqot) is both instructive and descriptive. “Flattering” is from the Hebrew root ḥlq (“make smooth”). A wooden translation might be something like “lips of smooth things” (cf. our own idiomatic expression “a smooth talker”). This phrase acknowledges that a persuasive command of the language is not always accompanied by a positive regard for the truth; one can manipulate truth to accomplish one’s own ends. Thus, śepat ḥalaqot may mean “flattering lips,” which shape speech to appeal to the ego of the listener, or “deceptive lips,” implying speech that exploits the ambiguities and complexities of language to shade the truth. In either case the intent is to deceive.
Speak with deception. The NIV translation of this phrase (beleb waleb yedabberu) obscures an interesting idiomatic construction. Since the heart is, for the Hebrew, the seat of reflective thought and commitment, the idiom captures a particularly pernicious form of deception. These masterful speakers of the word speak from a “double heart.” They do not say what they truly think or mean but hide the truth within them—in another heart, so to speak. In his brief but insightful volume on Hasidic Judaism, The Way of Man According to the Teachings of Hasidism, Jewish theologian Martin Buber suggests that the origin of all conflict between humans in this world is the result of
conflict between three principles in man’s being and life, the principle of thought, the principle of speech, and the principle of action. The origin of all conflict between me and my fellow-men is that I do not say what I mean, and that I do not do what I say. For this confuses and poisons, again and again.3
Plea for Deliverance (12:3–4)
INCENSED BY THE enemy’s arrogant determination to manipulate language and thus to obscure truth, the psalmist pleads for a punishment worthy of the crime. Still operating in the realm of hyperbole, he demands that Yahweh remove the offending elements of speech: “May the LORD cut off all flattering lips and every boastful tongue” (12:3). This is a harsh punishment, to be sure, but one that metaphorically emphasizes the anger the psalmist (and those who have been maligned and deceived) feels for such unabashed disregard for the truth. The utter self-absorption of the wicked is reflected in the mirror of their own arrogant words as they are quoted by the psalmist to reveal their moral bankruptcy: “We will triumph with our tongues; we own our lips—who is our master?” (12:4). Notice the chiastic arrangement of these verses revealed by the ordering of the elements of speech. The psalmist’s plea introduces first lips and then tongue, while the liars’ boast reverses the order with “our tongues . . . our lips.”
We will triumph. The Hebrew behind the NIV’s “triumph” is the Niphal imperfect of gbr (“be strong”). The wicked believe their mastery of deceptive language gives them power and leads to victory. That personal power comes at the cost of the truth and the exploitation of the defenseless is of no concern to them. Their trust in their ability to twist language to their own advantage is akin to some of the worst practices of lawyers to exploit the loopholes in legal statutes or to hide important conditions in the endless stilted and wilting officious prose and grammar in the “fine print” of contracts. The wicked described here are so confident in their mastery they feel invincible—completely in control and without limits. “As long as our lips are with us, who is our lord?”
This question is clearly intended to be rhetorical. The anticipated answer is, of course, “No one.” As such it reveals the massive egos of the liars, who feel there is no one who can stop them, no one to whom they must bow. But in the context of Psalm 12, the question also serves ironically to set up the divine response in verse 5. While the wicked see no impediment to the free manipulation of language, the psalmist and the reader know another answer to the liars’ puffed-up question. Who is their master? Yahweh is! And that is exactly what Yahweh demonstrates in the following verse.
Divine Response and Promise (12:5)
THE LIARS MAY consider the plight of the poor and needy whom they exploit a matter of little or no concern. But Yahweh takes his kingly role as protector of the defenseless seriously (see comments on 10:16–18). “Because of the oppression4 of the weak and the groaning of the needy, I will now arise,” says Yahweh (12:5). Yahweh—the divine king who sits in judgment in Psalms 9–10, who from his heavenly throne examines both righteous and wicked in Psalm 11, who has given feeble ʾenoš great honor and authority in Psalm 8—will enforce limitations on that power and authority when he arises to protect the defenseless “from those who malign them.”
Confident Expectation (12:6–7)
HAVING HEARD DIRECTLY from God of his imminent response, the psalmist confidently drives home the contrast between the shifting, distorting, and ultimately powerless words of the wicked and the “pure utterances” of Yahweh that accomplish what they promise.5 Using the analogy of the smelting and purification of precious metal from the other base materials bound up in the ore, the psalmist describes the “words of the LORD” as “pure utterances,”6 “refined silver,”7 and “purified [washed, strained?] seven times.”8
Between the last two phrases is a rather difficult passage (Heb. baʿalil laʾareṣ, lit., “at the entrance of the earth”) that is variously rendered. Delitzsch takes baʿalil as “in a furnace,” a move followed by most translators. Dahood and others take laʾareṣ to indicate the location or material of composition of the furnace: “a furnace in the ground” or “an earthen/clay furnace.” Kraus, who leaves the passage untranslated, suggests a possible reference to a “procedure in the process of smelting” that is now obscure to us, or the incorporation into the text of an originally separate marginal note. Suffice it to say that the passage is difficult, but it does not undermine the primary metallurgical imagery and the picture of refined purity attributed to the words of Yahweh. This purity of the divine utterance shows up the self-focused and grasping nature of the liars’ words, in contrast to the grandiose expectations expressed in 12:4.
The description in 12:6 is also intended to increase confidence in the faithful. That it accomplishes its purpose is demonstrated in the affirmation of trust declared in verse 7. Yahweh will watch over the weak and needy and will protect them “forever.” Persuaded of the emptiness of the claims of the wicked, emboldened by the divine promise of protection, and convinced of the pure effectiveness of the divine words, the psalmist is confident that the faithful will be preserved in the midst of attack.
Reprise of Complaint (12:8)
THE PSALMIST CONCLUDES by returning to his earlier (12:1–2) grounds of complaint against the wicked. As yet they experience no limitation to their power to oppress but move about freely so that in the psalmist’s present circumstance, human vileness is ascendant. The call to confident faith in divine protection comes from within the experience of oppression and (as in Ps. 11) offers a peace and security that is not based on the complete removal of evil and distress. The wicked still spout their boastful and misleading lies. They still strut about unhindered. But the faithful see through the eyes of the psalmist that Yahweh is the God of the pure, effective word, who takes the side of the needy when all others malign them. In the words of the New Testament, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Rom. 8:31).
THE CENTRAL IMAGE of this psalm is the spoken word. The contrast between the boastful, deceptive, self-serving words of the wicked and the pure, effective words of Yahweh is at the core of the psalmist’s message.
The effective word. The spoken (and written) word plays an important role in the biblical context. In Bible times, the spoken word was thought to bear a greater significance than in our contemporary setting. Words were thought in some way to be “effective.” That is, properly chosen and configured, they were thought to accomplish what they said. For this reason, on the one hand, curses were not simply cathartic venting of inner rage, as we might think of them today, but were dangerous attempts to injure another that had to be countered or protected against by some ritual or amulet. On the other hand, words spoken in blessing were not just expressions of wishful thinking but really added to the well-being and health of the one blessed.
This understanding of the effective word heightens the ironic tension in the story of Balaam (Num. 22–24), who, called by Balak, king of Moab, to curse the Israelites, was prevented by God from doing anything but blessing them. The sages also understood the importance of carefully choosing one’s words in order to avoid the negative consequences unleashed by foolish or malicious speech (see, e.g., Prov. 15:1–2, 4, 28; 17:27; 18:6–8, 21; 19:5; 20:20; 21:23, 28).
The spoken word was also intended to reflect the inner character of the upright person. That is why malicious and deceptive speech, as in our psalm, was so destructive to human society and so contrary to the intention of Yahweh. Humans look at the outside and can be misled by cunning and deceitful words. God, however, sees the heart and judges the discrepancies that arise between word and spirit.9 The “double heart” of which Psalm 12:2 speaks is the result of personal disintegration and gives rise to an equally disintegrated double talk. Thus, the sages consider integrity between heart and speech an essential foundation of wisdom: “My son, if your heart is wise, then my heart will be glad; my inmost being will rejoice when your lips speak what is right” (Prov. 23:15–16).
The kind of integrity the sages enjoin is ultimately reflected in the essential character of Yahweh. Yahweh is the only one who is truly transparent—not in the sense that all his motives are clearly understood, but in that there is no ultimate contradiction in him between thought and speech, word and action. In this role of the true and upright God, who can discern and judge any lack of integrity in humans, Yahweh is referred to on at least two occasions as the “God of truth” (Ps. 31:5; Isa. 65:16), and his distinction from deceptive humans is emphasized in Balaam’s ironic preface to his second oracle, “God is not a man, that he should lie” (Num. 23:19).
To choose the way of the lie and deception is to reject decidedly the way of Yahweh and to opt instead for self-power and self-interest. This is essentially the pattern that disrupted and distorted the divine image humans were created to reflect from the beginning. The serpent’s subtle distortion of the prohibition against eating the fruit of the tree—insinuating suspect motives to God (Gen. 3:4–5)—and the humans’ use of self-deceiving words to justify their disobedience and to shift blame elsewhere (3:6, 10–13) are examples of the powerfully deceptive character of the separation within humans of truth and the lie, thought and motivation, self-will and the desire to justify one’s chosen path to others—even to God. “All a man’s ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the LORD” (Prov. 16:2; cf. 21:2).
Humans are not good judges of their own best interests because they are divided within themselves. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death” (Prov. 14:12; 16:25). God, by contrast, sees clearly human motives (16:2) and their most propitious path. “For a man’s ways are in full view of the LORD, and he examines all his paths” (5:21).
While human words—whether truth or lie, blessing or curse—have an effect, they are not ultimately effective. I mean that while human words can help or hinder, wound or heal, they are ultimately unable to counter the creative and sustaining word of Yahweh. In the conversation between humans and God, Yahweh always has the last word. Job acknowledges this when he cries out, “Though one wished to dispute with [God], he could not answer him one time out of a thousand. . . . How then can I dispute with him? How can I find words to argue with him?” (Job 9:3, 14). Thus, the psalmist is confident that Yahweh will arise to protect the weak “from those who malign them” (Ps. 12:5). The boasters’ words ultimately deceive only themselves. God is not misled or impressed but sits in judgment over this offense of truth, justice, equity, and the order of his creation.
Divine transparency. The “flawless” character of Yahweh’s word, refined like the finest silver seven times, is more than an illustration of the ultimate effectiveness of the divine word. The point of the psalm is not just that God will have the last word. The purity of the divine word also illumines a certain transparency in God. What Yahweh says reveals his true character. God does not dissemble or deceive. He says what he means, and he does what he says. Therefore, not only can one trust Yahweh; one can also understand who God is by attending to his words. That is to say, God’s word is more than powerful and effective—bringing to being and sustaining the whole creation from the beginning—it also reveals who he is.
In this matter of divine revelation, the fact of divine transparency—of integrity and truth in the divine utterance, so to speak—is of extreme significance. It is this fact that allows us truly to know him through his words. It is almost incredible when you think of it that God, the creator of the universe, condescends to make himself known to humans through the revealing Word of God, so that his glory in all its magnificence is truly displayed through the whole earth (Ps. 8). It is even more astounding that when the spoken word of revelation failed to win the hearts of a self-focused people, God sent a different kind of Word to carry the conversation through to its completion. It is Christ who embodies, in the most concentrated and all-consuming form, both the revealing and effective character of the divine word. It is in Christ that we see God face to face, knowing even as we are known. It is in Christ that the power of sin is broken and life once again overpowers death.
If the divine Word—whether spoken, written in Scripture, or incarnate in Jesus Christ—is the chosen means through which God has made and continues to make himself known to us, then truth and transparency (integrity) are at the root of who God is. If we, then, are to fulfill our role to reflect the image of the creator, then we too must reflect the same kind of “flawless” purity of speech as the psalmist ascribes to Yahweh. Thus, the description of Yahweh’s pure word is not just a condemnation of the evil perpetrators of “double speak” in this psalm or anywhere in life. It is also a challenge to those of us who hunger and thirst after righteousness to speak with a unified heart that reflects our creator.
Contemporary Significance
HOW DO WE bring this discussion down to the earth of our own time and place? I imagine that most of you (even those who are not the least bit imaginative) could provide me with a long list of ways that words are used deceptively and manipulatively for self-interest. It is usually easier to point to others in this regard. In what follows, therefore, I will try to lead us from looking outward at others to looking inward at our own lack of integrity in word and action.
A world of deceptive words. We are all aware of the misleading nature of advertising. Cigarettes promise implicitly to make you sophisticated, adult, independent, or “cool.” No one mentions that they can kill you as well. The whole point of advertising is to exploit the ambiguity of language to create an attractive presence while downplaying or ignoring negative aspects of a product and staying on the legal side of speech. To be “legal,” however, is not the same as being “straightforward” or “honest.” Words don’t always mean what they seem. “Pure” juice, for example, must only contain a small percentage of actual juice to pass the legal grade. The result of advertising is often persuasion by implication or innuendo or by highly selective, partial communication, with significant omissions. The standard Latin rejoinder or disclaimer caveat emptor (“let the buyer beware”) demonstrates just how ancient this problem is.
Our legal system all too often exploits language. What is legal is not necessarily what is just or equitable. Laws supply a modicum of order to limit the chaos of human relationships. Certainly in our day much of the legal profession has become not defenders of justice but exploiters of what is legal. The obscure, technical language (legalese) employed to make legal definitions and documents as precise as possible has been proved time and again to be full of “loopholes”—situations not covered or left ambiguous. Much of the legal profession thrives on the mastery of this language and its ambiguities in order to exploit loopholes for their clients’ (and their own) gain.
Of course, the Old Testament knows many examples of such legal maneuvering and shading of the truth—as well as outright lying. One drastic example is the story of Naboth’s vineyard, in which Queen Jezebel corrupted the legal system in order to falsely accuse Naboth of a capital crime so that his execution would free up a prime vineyard he had previously refused to sell to King Ahab (1 Kings 21). This is another form of exploitation—to use plausible language to cloak falsehood so that truth is rendered powerless.
Advertising and law (and I should add politics here!) are only examples of the more obvious contexts in which language is exploited and twisted for gain. There are also those willing to cross the line of legality. Most recently I have heard on a number of occasions of companies who hid a request for “telephone service” in the small print on the bottom of what appeared to be a simple prize sweepstakes form. Those who signed up thought they were entering a sweepstakes to win a trip, or a vehicle, or some other attractive prize. Imagine their surprise when months later charges began to appear on their telephone bill for services they had unknowingly authorized by signing the sweepstakes form!
But not only do we live in a society that lies to us, but we lie to ourselves as well. Our streets are filled with people who refuse to know themselves or to accept the truth about the lives they have chosen to lead. One characteristic of compulsive personalities is an almost unlimited ability to deny the truth.
• I have not chosen wrongly, but I am a victim forced into this lifestyle by a hurtful society, parent, spouse, and so on.
• What I am doing is not so bad—especially when you compare it to what others are doing.
• If you had a spouse (job, problem) like mine, you would drink (smoke dope, act out sexually, etc.) too.
• No one is getting hurt here—we are all consenting adults.
• Drugs don’t hurt me; they increase my acuity, enhance my performance, and help me cope with stress.
Most of us know someone who uses these types of blatant distortions to justify a path of destructive behavior. Perhaps we are there ourselves.
There are other, more subtle lies that we tell ourselves—punching holes in our lives and allowing the spirit of joy to drain inevitably away.
• I am not worth much.
• I can’t do anything of value.
• I am unlovable.
• I am incompetent.
• I have to control my life and others to see that my needs are met.
These are all attitudes based on a series of foundational lies: Human beings have no worth other than what they make for themselves; that worth is dependent on how others value us; we are responsible to earn the acceptance of others. This kind of evaluation of self-worth leads to a life of deceit and manipulation. If my value is based on what others perceive about me, then I must always present an acceptable outside. Since I cannot always do that, then I must become better and better about hiding the truth about myself from those whose opinion I value and whose relationship I fear to lose.
This way of the lie is a set-up for failure. No matter how careful I am to separate the real me from the public me, I do not have enough energy to keep the wall in place at all times. The truth will get out—often with devastating results. Even if the carefully constructed façade never crumbles, the inner toll on integrity and the ability to share intimately with another is immense. We live life knowing it is all a lie. People only care for me because they don’t know the real me. If they did, they would reject me, because the real me is unacceptable.
Often we try to downplay the importance of words. “Words are cheap,” we say. “The end justifies the means, and it is okay to manipulate words (and people) for a good end.” But there is always a price for deceptive words. The foremost is a loss of personal integrity and transparency. Deceptive, manipulative words build a barrier to being truly known—it creates a loss of intimacy. If we are not one within ourselves, how can we ever hope to fulfill the creation hope to become one with others? The Tower of Babel story in Genesis 11 speaks of how God confused the rebellious humans’ languages so that they no longer understood each other. As a result, they were unable to work together and were ultimately scattered across the face of the earth. In a similar way, loss of correspondence between inner reality and the spoken word leads to confusion and misunderstanding, with ultimate personal and societal fragmentation.
Finally, our own inability to speak the truth within ourselves or outside ourselves hampers our ability to know God truly. God reveals himself freely to us in his Word. He makes himself known as he really is. He desires intimate relationship with us. But as we already know, intimacy is a two-way street; it takes honesty, openness, and vulnerability on both sides. A parent unknowingly opens an ambiguously addressed e-mail message and discovers a note to a daughter or son indicating a ongoing struggle the child is experiencing (say with sex, or drugs, or alcohol). The parent may now know the child’s inner secret, but there is no intimacy at all. Until the two (parent and child) are able to acknowledge the reality and communicate to one another openly about the circumstance, knowledge only builds a barrier to intimate relationship.
The same is true of our relationship to God. God wants to know us intimately. True, he omnisciently knows all there is to know about us. But he desires an open, vulnerable association with us in which we open our lives fully to him as he has opened himself to us in Christ’s making himself vulnerable to misunderstanding, rejection, suffering, and even death. He wants us to know as we are known. More than just knowing him—as powerful as that is—God wants us to know ourselves and each other with that same vulnerability and transparency that led Christ to the cross in our behalf.