Pervasive dishonesty has a corrosive effect on society. Trust in interpersonal relationships demands that the stories we share with and about our friends are accurate, and we expect that when reports come from news broadcasting organisations they are factually correct. Over the past decade, however, we have needed to be less trusting when it is reported on the BBC that women have committed certain crimes (when in fact it was men calling themselves women), or that children can achieve happiness only through trying to become the opposite sex. We need a lot of scepticism when stories are repeated against Jewish people and even when crimes are alleged against the state of Israel. It has also been exposed that footage from two separate messages by Donald Trump was spliced together to make it seem that he was saying the opposite of what he really said. One of the ten commandments forbids “bearing false witness against our neighbour.” God takes enough interest in our neighbour’s reputation to forbid us from speaking falsehoods and demand us to speak the truth. He is the God of truth and as part of the moral law, the obligation to be truthful is not only for Christians but for everyone everywhere at all times. When James Durham started to explore the ninth commandment, he set out the many ways that it can be broken. The following updated extract is unflinching in exposing the many ways we can sin against God’s requirement to speak the truth and earnestly warns us away from dishonesty in all its forms.

The ninth commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour,” requires truth in our words, both as to what we say and the manner in which we say it. Whether our words are only spoken words, or also put in writing, it’s in our words that our conformity (or lack of conformity) to the truth is most clearly apparent.

There are different kinds of lies

Lies are commonly divided into three sorts, according to their intended purposes.

There is mendacium perniciosum, a malicious or pernicious lie, when it is intended to bring hurt to someone else. These were the lies of those who bore witness against Christ, and the lies which Ziba told against Mephibosheth.

There is officiosum mendacium, or an officious lie, when it is for a good end. Such was the midwives’ lie (Exodus 1:9). The denying of a thing to be, even when the granting of it would infer hurt and damage to another, is contrary to truth, and we ought not to do evil in order that good may come of it. It overturns the end for which speaking was appointed, when we declare a thing to be otherwise than we know or think it to be. As no one can lie for himself for his own safety, so he cannot lie for another’s safety. To lie even for God is a fault, and accounted to be talking deceitfully and wickedly for Him, when, to avoid what we think is dishonourable to Him, we will assert that He may or may not do a certain thing, when yet the contrary is true (Job 13:4, 7).

There is jocosum mendacium, when it is for fun, to make others laugh. As it is sinful in itself, it cannot be a matter of lawful entertainment.

We may add one more, and that is mendacium temerarium, when people lie for no particular reason, but, through inadvertency and habitual carelessness, they speak otherwise than the thing is. This is called “the way of lying” (Psa. 119:29), and is certainly sinful. For example, when Amnon was killed, they told David that all the king’s sons were killed, but they were too hasty in jumping to a conclusion before checking the facts.

Lying causes different kinds of harm

Consider three ways in which people are wronged by lying.

1. By false reports, speaking what is in reality untruth.

2. By vain reports, which have a tendency to shame our neighbour. This commandment is repeated in Deuteronomy 5:20 in the words, “Thou shalt not take up any witness (as it is in the original) against thy neighbour.”

3. By malicious reports. Whether they be true or false, the intention behind them is that our neighbour would lose his good name.

Lying brings different kinds of guilt

Further, consider the persons involved.

1. The one who starts or spreads a tale which, whether true or false, is prejudicial to his neighbour. In this way, he is the maker of a lie.

2. The one who hears or receives tales (Prov. 17:4). He is to lying what a fence (i.e., receiver of stolen goods) is to theft. If people wouldn’t hear tales, few would spread them, whereas when people are ready to hearken to lies, especially people in positions of influence, everyone who works for them ordinarily become wicked tale-bearers and whisperers.

3. The one who allows a lying tale to pass on to his neighbour. He may not retell it himself, but he permits it to spread (he “loveth a lie,” as it is Revelation 22:8). Or perhaps he only faintly washes his hands of it, but either lets it linger, or possibly takes it up and repeats it again. Psalm 15:3 condemns the practice of taking up an evil report about your neighbour, even when others have laid it down, for those who do so shall never dwell with God. Simply the fact that someone said such-and-such a thing does not warrant our repeating of it again.

We should care about other people’s reputations

We should be accurate and fair

We may wrong our neighbour by words which are unjust and simply baseless. This kind of lie is called a calumny [defamation, slander]. This was what Ziba did to his master Mephibosheth. When there is some grain of truth in what is said, yet the words are spoken in order to bring harm to our neighbour, this is convitium [invective, abuse], especially if it means our neighbour suffers for the truth’s sake, or if a person’s previous faults are cast up to them after they have repented (e.g., if someone were to call Paul a blasphemer, even after hid conversion; Shimei was guilty of this when he railed on David; 2 Sam. 16).

Both these sorts of lies are either spoken or received. Either they are received and not afterward rejected, as David too hastily received the false report made of Mephibosheth by his servant Ziba, and thinking it not unlikely, because Ziba made it seem to be so, David therefore conclude it was truth, and did not reject it afterwards; or else, when at first received, yet afterwards, on better information, it is rejected.

Whether they are present or absent

Again, we can wrong our neighbour by words either in what we say of him when absent or when he is present. If he is absent, this is backbiting, and it is often done under pretence of much respect (in order that the report may stick better) in words like, “I only wish him well, I would hate for him to get a bad reputation, but the facts are only too clear …” If he is present, it is a reproach and indignity, or upbraiding.

Whether direct or implied

Backbiting and reproaching is sometimes direct, so that people may easily know we hate such persons, and sometimes it is indirect, granting something to his commendation, and prefaced with words which seem to show much love, but are purposely designed to make the wound deeper. Such persons are smoother than butter in their words, but in their hearts they are like sharp swords — this is the dissembling love which David complains of in Psalm 55.

Avoiding self-promotion

Sometimes this reproaching and slandering of our neighbour is done out of spleen against him, and is malicious. Sometimes it is done out of envy, to raise and exalt oneself on the ruins of someone else. Sometimes it is done with the intention of currying favour with those we are speaking to, either indicating that we can speak freely to them, to please them or praise them by crying down another. That is to serve the itching humour of those who love the praise of others, when (it may be) we know of more faults in those we speak to, yet we never open our mouth to them about one of these faults, nor do we speak freely with them about such faults if the things are true.

Avoiding idle gossip

This sin forbidden in this commandment includes (as we have said) railing, whispering, tale-bearing. It also includes the tattling of busybodies, who don’t know not how to build relationships with anyone, or pass the time with them, without telling some nasty story about someone else. It also includes prevarication, which is the sin of persons who are inconstant, whose words are not consistent. They say and unsay. They put things now this way and then another way, even when they are talking about the same thing. Their words clash together, and they are not consistent with themselves.

We should even be careful about saying what is true

We may even break the ninth commandment by speaking truth! When and how?

1. For an evil end, as Doeg did (Psa. 52:2).

2. For revenge.

3. Without discretion, so that it shames more than it edifies. Christ says, “Tell him his fault betwixt thee and him alone” (Matt. 18:15), but on the contrary we cast it up to him as a reproach. This certainly is not right.

4. As a half-truth. It is possible to mince the truth, and not tell it all (when, if all was told, it might alleviate). It is also possible to construe and wrest the truth to a wrong end, as was done by the witnesses who gave depositions against Christ (Matt. 26:60–61).

5. By flattery. We may go to the extreme of speaking to much good about (or to) our neighbour, if the good is not true. This includes giving him excessive and rash praise and commendation, beyond what is due, or beyond what we give to others of equal worth, or beyond discretion (because it stirs up envy in others, or pride in the one who is praised). It also includes inordinate praise, to that person’s face, perhaps to gain his affection, and possibly more than when he is absent and doesn’t hear what you say. It is much more blameworthy when it is spoken groundlessly, for this is flattery, and a most base evil, exceedingly damaging to human society, although exceedingly delightful to the one who is flattered. We must also guard against justifying or defending or excusing our neighbour, in smaller or greater matters, when it is undeserved.

Ambiguity and equivocation are also sinful

Under the sin forbidden in the ninth commandment are classified all beguiling words. This includes by equivocation, when the thing is doubtfully and ambiguously expressed, as well as mental reservation, a trick whereby the grossest lies may be justified, and which is plainly subversive of all truth in speaking, when the sentence is only half expressed. For example, imagine someone asks a Roman priest, “Are you a priest?” and he answers, “I am no priest,” reserving in his mind, “I am no priest of Baal!” By expressing the answer like this, an untruth and cheat is left on the questioner, and the answer does not square with the question as it ought to.

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