They speak falsehood every one with his neighbour [with] flattering lip, with a double heart, do they speak.
Psalm 12 opens with a cry for help because trustworthy people have vanished. Verse 2 shows what fills the gap they leave. Commentators read it as speech turned into a tool: smooth on the surface, split underneath.
One writer sets this psalm beside the one before it.
This psalm presents a contrast to Psalm 11. There, the evil is working in secret: here, it flaunts itself in public. The two conditions may be found together. Evil may be quietly undermining all that is of God while, at the same time, the lawlessness of man is on public display.
Who is this neighbour? One writer places the failure among people who carry the same name and the same hope.
I think Psalm 12 applies to, or at least includes, those who carry the name and share the same hope in name only, but who were not God's children at all. It is the godly man's complaint about the state of things around him in Zion itself. He would not have been surprised to find no godly ones among the enemy nations outside.
The Hebrew behind "double heart" is blunt. One translator gives it word for word:
They speak emptiness, each with his neighbour; they speak with flattering lips and with a double heart [literally, a heart and a heart].
Verse 2 names that doubleness as the fault. One commentator traces how empty words replace faithful ones:
For a time some people stand firmly for the truth of the Word of God. But when they die, no one seems to follow in their steps. Instead, their place is taken by people who can only speak idle, useless words — words that may not be wicked in themselves, but bring no profit. Instead of faithfully giving the pure Word of God, they use flattery to build up each other's pride. They speak with a double heart: not with single-hearted honesty, not with simplicity, but with duplicity (v. 2). They know how to twist the truth to make it mean the opposite of what it says.
One writer traces flattery back to its motive, and on to what it does with the truth.
People flatter others because they like to be flattered themselves, so they build up each other's pride. They can twist the truth to please themselves. They forget that the Lord gave people tongues so that they would speak truth. Instead of recognising God, they think their tongues are their own, to use in the service of falsehood, as though they can manufacture truth out of falsehood.
Flattering lips start somewhere. One writer traces the fault back past the tongue to the man himself.
Man's misery and evil are these. He has fallen away from God and no longer believes in His love and care, so he has become the object of his own self-love and care. Self rules him, holds him down, degrades him, corrupts him. He should serve creation with blessing; instead self turns him into the oppressor and tormentor of everything under him.
The psalm does not stop at man's speech. It turns to God's.
The Lord's word comes here into swift opposition to all this. Yet it is love and pity that move Him to act — the oppression of the poor, the sighing of the needy. His promise pledges that He will step in. Then, before that happens, faith celebrates the "pure" words of the Lord. They carry no alloy of insincerity or untruth. They are like silver, the currency of exchange, completely refined.
The verse describes what any of us once were. One writer ends with a question about who owns our lips.
There was a time, before we were saved, when Psalm 12:2-4 might have applied to any one of us. I hope that my reader can say: "my lips are His". What do we use our mouths and our lips for now?
- Self — Behind the smooth lip is a man who has fallen away from God and made himself the object of his own love and care.
- Split — "Double heart" is literally "a heart and a heart" — not single-hearted honesty, but duplicity that twists truth into its opposite.
- Sweetness — Flattery is a trade: people flatter so that others will flatter them back, and both sides feed each other's pride.
- Silver — The Lord's words carry no alloy of insincerity, like silver fully refined, and He acts because the poor are sighing.
- Surrender — The test of the verse is ownership: not "our lips are our own", but "my lips are His".
Jehovah will cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that speaketh proud things,
Psalm 12 opens with an alarm. The godly man is gone, the faithful have vanished, and words between neighbours no longer carry truth. Verse 3 is the answer of faith to that world — a word aimed straight at smooth lips and a boasting tongue.
The verse does not stand alone. It follows a picture of a whole society gone false, and it names what God will deal with.
Here the mass are all alike. There is no godly man left. The faithful are gone from among the children of men. Their mouth is full of falsehood, they have the smoothest of lips, and a double heart. Jehovah will show Himself against all such, and against the tongue that speaks great things.
The "double heart" is the root the verse cuts at: one thing said, another thing meant.
Flattering lips are not just polite lips. They are lips used against their purpose, and each person props up the other's pride.
People flatter others because they like to be flattered themselves. So they build up one another's pride. Their tongues can twist the truth to please themselves. They forget that the Lord gave men tongues so that they may speak truth.
So flattery is not a harmless habit. It damages the person who receives it.
I am sure you will feel this, my dear friend and brother. One man cannot do a greater harm to another than by praising him and feeding his pride. "A man who flatters his neighbor spreads a net for his feet," and a flattering mouth works ruin.
The verse pairs flattery with big talk, and the psalm goes on to show why the two belong together. Both are ways of putting self at the centre.
The words of man show their true character: self-exaltation and self-will. They seek to lift themselves up by flattering others and boasting of themselves — speaking proud things. They express their self-will by refusing all authority: they say "who is lord over us?" As always, the man who is loudest in claiming freedom of speech and freedom of action for himself is the first to refuse freedom to others. He is the oppressor of the godly.
Translations differ here. Some read the line as a prayer — "May the LORD cut off." Others read it as a statement of what God will do, and older translations render it that way: "Jehovah will cut off." Either way, the outcome is certain. The psalm also gives the reason God acts.
They are not blind to the evil, but they can bring it to the Lord. This is the subject of Psalm 12, "Help, Jehovah, for the godly man ceases." Jehovah will cut off the proud and deceitful lips. This is the character of the wicked. He accepts no check and no restraint on his will. He says, "Who is lord over us?" But it is just for his oppression of the poor that Jehovah arises.
The psalm answers with a different speech. Flattering lips have a deadline; the words of the Lord do not.
In contrast to the empty, flattering and boastful words of men, the godly have the pure words of the Lord, with no impurity mixed in. Resting on these pure words, the righteous are sure that God will keep and preserve them from this generation — those marked by the lawless spirit of the age.
A believer cannot treat his speech as his own property. The reason is a price already paid.
Every Christian should realize that his lips are not his own for he is bought with a price. It is this precious redeeming blood of Christ that has purchased us for Himself... He purchased us for Himself by His blood, and that blood gives Him a definite claim on our lips. So we have no moral right to use them for any speech that displeases Him.
- A double heart. Flattering lips and a double heart are one sin seen twice. The words please the ear; the meaning underneath is different.
- Flattery injures. Praise that feeds pride is the greatest harm one person can do another; a flattering mouth works ruin.
- The boast behind it. Pride in speech and self-will in life go together. They end in "who is lord over us?" and in oppressing the godly.
- God arises. He cuts off the proud and deceitful lips, and it is the oppression of the poor that moves Him to act.
- Purchased lips. The believer was bought with a price. His lips belong to Christ, so he has no right to speech that displeases Him.