Proverbs 8:8

All the words of my mouth are righteous; ¹  there is nothing in them twisted ²  or crooked.

Ps 12:6; Pr 8:13; Isa 45:23; Isa 63:1; Joh 7:46

¹ tn The phrase could be rendered with an understood ellipsis: “all the words of my mouth [are said] in righteousness”; or the preposition could be interpreted as a beth essentiae: “all the words of my mouth are righteousness.”

² sn The verb פָּתַל (patal) means “to twist.” In the Niphal it means “to wrestle” (to twist oneself). It was used in Gen 30:8 for the naming of Naphtali, with the motivation for the name from this verb: “with great struggling.” Here it describes speech that is twisted. It is a synonym for the next word, which means “twisted; crooked; perverse.”