Proverbs 14:5

Proverbs 14:5 "A faithful witness will not lie: but a false witness will utter lies."

To understand a proverb as it was intended takes time, prayer and meditation.   Understanding the proverbs sometimes requires a little spiritual dissection, like that experienced in high school biology class with a frog or the eyeball of a cow.  This is one of those proverbs that merits a spiritual scalpel and some spiritual tweezers.  On the surface, it looks like just a sentence of obvious observations like, “birds fly but fish swim.”  While Solomon was not above recording obvious realities, it was not the common practice of a man gifted with divine wisdom to write something so simple and basic.  He was more than a reporter; he was an instructor.  He was more than a witness of life; he was a student of life.  He did more than tell his audience what was happening in the world; he told his audience why things and why people were the way they were in the world.

The key to understanding this proverb is found in the word, “WILL.”  Today, we use “will” and “shall” interchangeably and rarely use the word, “shall.”  Because the King James Version didn’t replace the word “shall” with “will” like most modern versions, we can better understand what Solomon was teaching when using the KJV.  While both verbs apply to the future, “WILL” involves a person’s INTENTION and “SHALL” suggests a CERTAINTY that something is definitely going to happen.  Matthew 8 is a great example of the difference in each word and why the KJV translators didn’t make those words the same word.  Matthew wrote about a leper coming to Jesus and in verse two, the leper worshipping Him, saying, “Lord, if thou WILT, thou canst make me clean.”  Jesus responded in the following verse by saying, “I WILL, be thou clean.”  The leper knew that his healing hinged on Jesus’ “WILL” and fortunately for him, it was Jesus’ intention to heal him.  Two verses later, a Roman centurion came to Jesus informing Him that his servant was sick of the palsy, “grievously tormented.”  Jesus responded by saying, “I WILL come and heal him,” once again communicating His intention.  The centurion didn’t want to inconvenience Jesus any more than he already had so he said, “speak the word only, and my servant SHALL be healed.”   Had he said, “my servant WILL be healed,” that would’ve implied that that was the intention of the servant.  Instead, by saying, “my servant SHALL be healed,” that rightly inferred that had Jesus commanded healing, his servant would definitely been healed and that, regardless of what the servant’s intentions were or not.  

Solomon used our words, “WILL” and “SHALL” true to their meanings and in so doing, taught with these meanings in mind.  For example, two proverbs before this proverb in verse 3, we read, “In the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride: but the lips of the wise SHALL preserve them.”  Solomon declared certain preservation for the wise because of their lips.  That preservation was going to happen regardless of the intentions of the wise.  In this proverb however, we do not read, “a faithful witness SHALL not lie” nor do we read, “a false witness SHALL utter lies.”  While those statements of future certainty could be just as true, that’s not what Solomon wrote.  Instead, he wrote, “a faithful witness WILL not lie; but a false witness WILL utter lies,” which speaks of intention.  By using a similar but different word than was used in a recent proverb, the instruction changes and the meaning of the proverb takes on a different form.  Solomon wasn’t teaching us what particular witnesses DO as much as he was teaching us how particular witnesses THINK.  A faithful witness doesn’t instinctively speak truth nor does a false witness automatically utter lies.  A faithful witness intends to speak truthfully about what they’ve witnessed while a false witness intends of speaking deceitfully about what they have or haven’t witnessed.  What we do happens long before we do it.  What we say is thought about long before we say it.  Intentions produce actions.

In best applying this proverb to our daily lives, it’s important to define what it means to be a “faithful” witness.  Of the nine times Solomon writes the word, “faith,” it’s always used within the word, “faithful” or some variation of it but never by itself.  He never mentions the word, “belief” and only twice does he use the word, “believe,” both of which were in the context of believing men, not God.  Solomon didn’t write about faith because he was focused on the mind and the need for wisdom within it.  Solomon’s “faithful witness” has nothing to do with “the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).  The “faithful witness” of this proverb is that man or woman who is loyal to their role as a witness and their duty to speak honestly about what they saw.  A “faithful witness” pledges an allegiance to the truth of what they observed about some person or event and to never distort, exaggerate or contradict those details.  A “faithful witness” is that person who consistently declares or reflects what he sees.

This is the only time Solomon speaks about a “faithful witness” by that name but it is not the only time Scripture does.  A psalm written by Ethan the Ezrahite uses that name in such a way that helps us see what Solomon was teaching.  The connection between this proverb and Ethan’s psalm is very interesting not only because the same phrase is used in both but because Ethan rivaled Solomon’s wisdom.  According to 1 Kings 4:31, Ethan was one of the four wisest men that Solomon exceeded in wisdom.  Furthermore, Ethan’s psalm spoke very precisely about Solomon’s father and his seed, which of course would be Solomon.  He would’ve known this psalm very well and likely found the phrase of particular interest.  Ethan wrote of David in Psalm 89:36-37, “his seed shall endure for ever, and his throne as the sun before me.  It shall be established for ever as the moon, and as a FAITHFUL WITNESS in heaven.”  The moon is the perfect picture of a faithful witness.  She intends every night when she shines in our sky to faithfully or consistently reflect the light of what she sees without partiality or discrepancy.  With her purpose clearly defined in Genesis 1, she knows her place in the heavens.  She has no agenda.  She seeks not her own will or way.  She rejoices in the light.  Night in and night out throughout our world, she is a faithful witness of the sun’s light.  She never puts her own spin on the sun’s light.  She never distorts the sun’s light.  She doesn’t use that light to her advantage.  Reflecting the light of the sun is not just what she does, it’s what she intends to do.  She never appears in the horizon with conflicting intentions.  She is a faithful witness because she respects her Maker’s design for her to reflect the light.
 
Between Solomon’s usage of the word, “WILL” and Ethan’s illustration of the moon’s faithful witness, we can better understand what makes a person a faithful witness.  When we recognize our duty to use the eyes God gave us to rehearse what we witness truthfully, we will intend to speak truthfully.  When we fail to appreciate why God gave us our amazing eyesight, we will intend to use our eyes deceitfully for our advantage and benefit.  It’s not just what we end of saying that renders us faithful or false, it’s what we intend to say that determines our title.  Like the moon in the dark sky, God made us to be lights in a dark world.  Like the moon reflecting the pure light of the sun, God made our eyes to reflect truth when standing up for the innocent.  Like the moon reporting what it sees without any deceit, our eyes were created to report what they see without any deceit so as to help solve a dispute or rescue the just.
 
How do you intend to use your eyes in this dark world?  If you have no intentions to use them as they were designed to be used, you will use them for yourself as human nature will quickly grab them for its selfish well-being.  Anyone who lacks the intention and determination to always and accurately share what they see, they “SHALL” not be a faithful witness.