19:5 A false witness 1 will not go unpunished,
and the one who spouts out 2 lies will not escape punishment. 3
28:26 The one who trusts in his own heart 4 is a fool,
but the one who walks in wisdom 5 will escape. 6
1 tn Heb “a witness of lies.” This expression is an attributive genitive: “a lying witness” (cf. CEV “dishonest witnesses”). This is paralleled by “the one who pours out lies.”
2 tn Heb “breathes out”; NAB “utters”; NIV “pours out.”
3 tn Heb “will not escape” (so NAB, NASB); NIV “will not go free.” Here “punishment” is implied, and has been supplied in the translation for clarity.
sn This proverb is a general statement, because on occasion there are false witnesses who go unpunished in this life (e.g., Prov 6:19; 14:5, 25; 19:9). The Talmud affirms, “False witnesses are contemptible even to those who hire them” (b. Sanhedrin 29b).
4 sn The idea of “trusting in one’s own heart” is a way of describing one who is self-reliant. C. H. Toy says it means to follow the untrained suggestions of the mind or to rely on one’s own mental resources (Proverbs [ICC], 505). It is arrogant to take no counsel but to rely only on one’s own intelligence.
5 sn The idiom of “walking in wisdom” means to live life according to the acquired skill and knowledge passed on from the sages. It is the wisdom from above that the book of Proverbs presents, not the undisciplined and uninformed wit and wisdom from below.
6 tn The verb form יִמָּלֵט (yimmalet) is the Niphal imperfect; the form means “to escape.” In this context one would conclude that it means “to escape from trouble,” because the one who lives in this life by wisdom will escape trouble, and the one who trusts in himself will not.