A righteous [man] hateth lying: but a wicked [man] is loathsome, and cometh to shame.
Ver. 5. A righteous man hateth lying.] Hateth it as hell. Rom 12:9 a "I hate and abhor lying," saith David; Psa 119:163 and yet, among other corruptions, he had an inclination to this sin. See how roundly he tells three or four lies together; 1 Samuel 21:2 ; 1 Samuel 21:8 ; 1Sa 27:8 ; 1Sa 27:10 but he both hated it in himself and prayed against it Psa 119:29
But a wicked man is loathsome.] Stinks above ground; a liar especially is looked upon as a pest. Riches cannot make a man so graceful as lying will disgrace him; for "a poor man walking in his integrity, is better than a rich man that is a liar." Proverbs 19:1 ; Pro 19:22 Hence the liar denies his own lie, because he is ashamed to be taken with it. Some read it thus, ‘a wicked man maketh others loathsome, and casteth shame upon them,' scil., by raising or reporting lies of them, by blasting or blemishing their good names. Thus Core and his complices sought to cast an odium on Moses; the Pharisees upon our Saviour; the Arians upon Athanasius; the Papists upon Wycliffe, whom Binius slanders for his missing the bishopric of Worcester, to have fallen upon that successful contradiction; like as the spiteful Jews said Paul did, because he could not obtain the high-priest's daughter to wife. b
a αποστυγουντες .
b Epiphan.