The Ninth Commandment
“Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.”
Exodus xx. 16.
This commandment has a two-fold intention. First, it guards the reputation; and, secondly, it closes the door of opportunity against unworthy men, who might seek to enter therein upon false testimony. Reputation is of great value to those who desire to dwell in the government of God. Such have seen the true nature of things, and have discovered that the only shame that can ever come to man is the shame of sin. Men outside the Divine government are ashamed of what they speak of as failure, are ashamed, moreover, of poverty. To be little and unknown, or to be poor, fills the heart of the average man of the world with terror and foreboding. To those who walk in the light of the Divine thought, to be little and unknown may be a part of that Divine purpose, which ever moves toward glorious consummation; and to be poor may be a part of the condition of being rich toward God.
To all such the only thing to be feared is sin, and a reputation unsmirched by evil is a most precious possession. In the last analysis it really matters nothing what others may think of a man. To be right with God depends upon character, and character is not affected by reputation. Character is the engraving upon the being of a man, of the true facts concerning himself. Reputation is the estimate which others form of him. The latter should ever be dependent upon the former. That it is not so is due to the false ideals men have of success and of greatness; to the shallowness of the popular estimate of sin; and to the contempt of the worldly for rightness. Many whom the world has condemned have passed stainless into the Divine presence.
May it not be reverently said that the Perfect One is the supreme example of this truth? Looking at Him and His career from the purely human side, He lost His life through the sin against which this commandment is directed — that, namely, of false witness. For the comfort of those whose reputation has been assailed, let it ever be remembered that “He was despised and rejected of men”; and, moreover, that He said, “Blessed are ye when men shall reproach you and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for My sake.” Yet God does care for the reputation of His own. In the end He will vindicate them. For the passing hour He guards their reputation by this stern and unbending requirement, and those who love His law will ever remember this word, and refuse to rob any man of his acquired right of reputation.
The commandment has also the other effect, that of guarding the righteous from the evils resulting from receiving unworthy men upon false testimony. The man who willingly gives a rogue an entrance to some position on a false statement of character shares his roguery, and wrongs those upon whom the evil man is imposed. It is not necessary to stay to consider the subtle and far-reaching power of thought when expressed in speech. The words of James occur naturally in this connection, “And the tongue is a fire; the world of iniquity among our members is the tongue, which defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the wheel of nature, and is set on fire by hell.” More harm has been wrought in human society by false testimony than can ever be stated or fully understood. Hence it is of great importance to carefully examine this ninth word of the Decalogue; and this will be done by noticing, first, the simple intention of the command; secondly, how the command may be violated; and, thirdly, its application to present-day questions.
I. — The Simple Intention of the Command.
The words “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor” demand truth in the statement, directly or indirectly, made by man, to man, concerning man. As the third commandment forbade the taking of the name of God in vain, and so conditioned the relation of man to God in sincerity and truth; so the ninth reveals the fact that man in his relation to his fellow is to be actuated by the same principles, and proceed on the same lines. God ever deals with man upoHjoo The Ten Commandments.
the basis of His full and accurate knowledge of what man is. The Divine attitude towards man, and dealings with man, are not governed by the appearances which man desires to keep up before his fellows, nor by the opinion formed of him by his neighbors. No truer or more weighty words were ever spoken than those in which the Psalmist describes the Divine knowledge in Psalm cxxxix.: “O Lord, Thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, Thou understandest my thought afar off.”
Upon that intimate and absolute knowledge God bases His dealings with men. Such also is His purpose for man in his relation to his fellow. Human knowledge is of necessity limited, but limited knowledge is true so far as it goes, and the Divine requirement is that every man should sincerely speak of, and deal with, his brother man. The intercourse of men with each other is to depend upon actual facts of character, conduct, and capability. The whole social fabric is based upon testimony that one bears to another, and in order that that fabric may be established in truth and righteousness, such testimony is to be true. No man “1 must be helped or harmed by statements made concern- ing him, which are not exactly in accordance with the i facts as far as they are known. Beyond knowledge, therefore, no testimony may be borne, and in he giving of testimony, no facts are to be withheld that would alter the decision. In order that men may approximate in their dealings with each other, to the same law of rectitude which characterizes the Divine dealing with them, the opinions which one man produces in the mind
of a second concerning- the character of a third are to be simple, exact, true.
II. — How the Commandment May Be Violated,
The first and simplest application of the commandment is to evidence given in courts of justice! The very name just used indicates the true function of such courts. They are tribunals for the execution of justice. Justice is based upon truth, and any false testimony borne is a violation of truth and produces a miscarriage of justice. For this reason, therefore, perjury is made a criminal offence, and rightly so, because through perjury other forms of crime may go unpunished, and the innocent be made to suffer. To stay here, however, would be to rob the commandment of more than half its force, and because the majority of men may never have had to give evidence in a court of human law, and yet are daily in danger of breaking this word of the Divine law, they should carefully examine the sevenfold way in which false witness may be borne.
The most bare and unblushing form of the sin is, of course, that of slander, the lie invented and distributed with malicious intention. Perhaps no form of injury done by man to man is more despicable than this. The person who makes use of it is one compared with whom the highway man is a gentleman, and the assassin almost kind. The highwayman robs of material things that have been gained, and may be replaced. The assassin ends the life by swift or sudden stroke, often with little pain; but the slanderer who invents a lie, and uses it. forms a weapon which takes away a reputa* tion, and all the chances are against its ever being regained; and thus oftentimes causes untold and prolonged suffering to the innocent, while, in the majority of cases, he himself goes undiscovered and unpunished.
Again, false witness is borne by tale-bearing, that is, by repetition of some report without careful investigation. It is a very great question whether the law of libel is not based on righteousness when it provides that not even the truth is to be circulated to the detriment of any person. This, at any rate, is certain, that to repeat a story, if it reflects upon the honor or character of any man, without the most careful inquiry, is to violate the commandment. This is certainly one of the most common forms in which it is done, and the tale-bearer perpetually excuses the action by saying that there was no intention to deceive, and the rumor was believed to be correct. This, however, is no justification. It is of the essence of wickedness to speak of a neighbor in such a way as is likely to work harm, unless the statements made are the statements of simple and actual fact. There are persons who seem to revel in this form of lawlessness, delighting in the very havoc wrought by the tales they tell.
False witness is also borne when a false impression is made upon the minds of certain persons about others, by a hint, a suggestion, or even the adroit asking of a question. Stigma has been cast upon many a fair reputation by such a question as, “Have you heard about
Mr.?” The answer being given in the negative,
the questioner says, “Ah, well, the least said soonest mended.” Nothing further can be drawn from him, but an unfavorable impression has been created, and the innuendo has had all the deceiving effect of false witness.
False witness, moreover, may also be borne by silence. When one man utters a calumny upon a second in the hearing of a third, if the third knows the statement to be a calumny, and for some personal reason or dislike, or it may be of fear, remains silent, that person is as guilty of the breach of the law as is the one uttering the calumny.
Then again, the imputation of motive is a prolific source of evil. Some deed done, or some gift bestowed, is called in question, not because they in themselves are wrong, but because it is hinted there was a reason for doing this other than that appearing — an ulterior, selfish, sordid motive. Some sentences that mark the methods of imputed motives are so commonly in use that to mention them is to reveal how prevalent Is this form of the sin. “Ah, yes; he knows what he is doing.” “The gift was only a sprat to catch a mackerel.” “He knows which side his bread is buttered on.”
Flattery is also a form of the same sin. To say to another man concerning him things which are not believed to be true, which, indeed, are known to be untrue, simply for the sake of pleasing him, and paying ^^’^l^J^hljyyyp is to perjure the soul, and may be to imperH his safety. In the same way, to utter unwarranted praise, to give a testimonial of character, or to recommend a man simply out of friendship for him, while he Is known to be unworthy of the testimony borne, is to inflict injury upon the person to whom he is thus recommended.
Thus it will be seen how subtle a danger this of false witness is, how easily and almost imperceptibly, impressions of other people which are untrue may be created. There is no word of the Decalogue more often and unconsciously broken than this ninth commandment, and men need perpetually and persistently to pray,
“Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.”
III. — Application to Present-Day Questions.
The sin of bearing false witness is terribly prevalent among individuals to-day. It would be a somewhat startling revelation if records could be taken of all the conversations at afternoon teas, Dorcas meetings, and all those institutions at which women do congregate. There is no doubt that men are also guilty of much wrong-doing in this way, but it seems a peculiarly favorite form of iniquity among women. The habit of talking of other people, discussing their affairs, is a most pernicious one, filled with peril to those who do it, and to those of whom they speak. J[t is largely indulged in through want of better occupation and^Iack of mental culture, with its accompaniment of conversational power. It is spoken of often as a harmJess vice, the only truth in that statement being that it is vice — harmless it by no means is.
A whisper broke the air,
A soft light tone, and low,
Yet barbed with shame and woe;
Now, might it only perish there.
Nor further go!
Ah me! a quick and eager ear
Caught up the little-meaning sound;
Another voice has breathed it clear,
And so it wandered round,
From ear to lip, from lip to ear,
Until it reached a gentle heart,
And that — it broke.
There is also abroad to-day a great deal of false charity, which always works larger harm in the end. When out of pity for the present necessity of an incompetent man, he is recommended to a position for which he is not fitted, his final failure is made surer, and harm is wrought in the work committed to his trust. This is done in commercial, literary, political, and religious life.
Nations and societies as well as individuals, may be guilty of the sin of false witness. It seems to-day the perpetual habit of certain sections of the press to impute motives to foreign nations, and for politicians to heap contumely and abuse on their opponents. Half the unrest in Europe may be said to be due to false witness borne by one nation against another through the press. It might be a good thing if many of our politicians and pressmen could for one brief half-hour divest themselves of their critical capacity, and read without prejudice an article of Marie Corelli’s which appeared in the pages of The Free Lance, entitled “Manners, Gentlemen.”
The air is full of suspicion, and while the old methods of persecution by imprisonment and torture have passed, martyrs are still being made by the process of false witness borne, while all the while the thunder of e Divine riat sounds over the age, “Thou shalt not lo6 The Ten Commandments.
bear false witness against thy neighbor,” and the Mas’ ter’s words are still found in His manifesto of the kingdom of heaven, “Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured unto you. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me cast out the mote out of thine eye; and lo, the beam is in thine own eye. Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine own eye, and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.”
Every violation of truth is a desecration of the Decalogue, and there is no meaner form of rebellion against God and harming one’s fellow-men than that of creating impressions which are not true in the minds of others. He that breaks this command is at once a thief, a coward, and a liar — a liar, because false witness is the opposite of truth; a coward, because a lie once started on its way, is never finally overtaken, and he who thus aims at the heart of his fellow-man gives him no chance of correction; a thief, for as Shakespeare
says:
Who steals my purse steals trash:
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.
The corrective is, of course, in the cession of the being to Him Who is at once the embodiment of truth and incarnate love- Where He reigns the motive 3-« love, and love ever expresses iiself in truth.