Psalms 12:2
They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak.
Study Note
Study Note
The lament — 'everyone utters lies to his neighbor; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak' — opens Psalm 12's anguished description of a community in which trustworthy speech has collapsed. The Hebrew 'lev va-lev' (literally 'heart and heart') describes the double heart — the person who presents one face while holding a contradictory private intention — as the defining characteristic of the social crisis. The psalm's contrast between human lying speech (verses 2-4) and God's pure speech (verse 6 — 'the words of the LORD are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace') makes theological and linguistic integrity inseparable. The verse has been cited in the context of political and media ethics as a precise description of the social pathology produced when communication is systematically subordinated to power and manipulation.
Other Translations
They speak falsehood every one with his neighbor: With flattering lip, and with a double heart, do they speak.
Vanity they speak each with his neighbour, Lip of flattery! With heart and heart they speak.
Everyone says false words to his neighbour: their tongues are smooth in their talk, and their hearts are full of deceit.
Cross References
Of Zebulun, such as went forth to battle, expert in war, with all instruments of war, fifty thousand, which could …
For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulchre; …
His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity.
Draw me not away with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity, which speak peace to their neighbours, but …
The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit: he hath left off to be wise, and to do good.
He deviseth mischief upon his bed; he setteth himself in a way that is not good; he abhorreth not evil.
They also that seek after my life lay snares for me: and they that seek my hurt speak mischievous things, …
And if he come to see me, he speaketh vanity: his heart gathereth iniquity to itself; when he goeth abroad, …
Why boastest thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man? the goodness of God endureth continually.
Thou lovest all devouring words, O thou deceitful tongue.