What Does Proverbs 14:5 Mean?
A steady witness does not lie, but a false witness breathes out lies.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
A faithful witness will not lie: but a false witness will utter lies.THE KEY
Hebrew makes the false witness’s act and output grow from the same כזב (kzb, falsehood) root, while the faithful witness rests on אמן (aman, firmness).
THE MEANING
A witness’s words expose what holds them: faithful testimony stays firm, while false testimony gives falsehood a voice. The verse speaks now wherever your account of another person’s life can preserve what is true or distort it.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It dissolves the belief that a false statement is only a mistake in wording: testimony reveals the speaker’s nature, and false witness multiplies the lie in speech.
THE ROOT
אֱמוּנִים
emunim
GROWS FROM
אמן
aman: firm, steady; something that holds.
אֱמוּנִים (emunim, faithful/steady) grows from אמן (aman, firm/steady), the same seed behind trust and confirmation. The witness’s reliability is pictured as a steadiness that carries through into speech.
ALSO GROWS
emunah: trust, steadfastness
אֱמוּנָה
Trust rests on what proves steady, showing the firmness beneath the witness’s faithfulness.
amen: firm; truly; so be it
אָמֵן
Amen confirms something as firm, echoing the witness whose words hold.
יְכַזֵּב
yekhazev
GROWS FROM
כזב
kazav: lie, falsify, or prove false.
“does not lie” in this verse is yekhazev. The repeated כזב (kzb, falsehood) seed ties the act of lying to the lies that are spoken: one root names both what the witness does and what the witness produces. English separates the verb and noun, while Hebrew makes their shared source audible.
ALSO GROWS
yekhazev: will lie
יְכַזֵּב
This is the verb in the first half: the faithful witness does not perform this act.
kezavim: lies, falsehoods
כְּזָבִים
The second half turns the same root into the witness’s spoken output.
THE PATTERN
Testimony carries the character of its source: steady words preserve truth, while false testimony gives distortion a voice.
The one who breathes out trust declares alignment, but a witness of falsehood breathes out deceit.You shall not answer against your neighbor as a witness of falsehood.Therefore, taking off lying, speak truth, each one with his neighbor, for we are limbs of one another.THE THREAD
The instruction of the LORD is whole, turning back the living soul; the witness of the LORD is steady, making the open ones wise.The Hebrew word behind “sure” is נֶאֱמָנָה (ne’emanah, firm/faithful), from אמן (aman), the same root beneath “faithful” here. Psalm 19 joins that firmness to testimony itself, showing how a steady source makes its witness trustworthy.
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