Proverbs 6:12
"A worthless person, a wicked man is one who walks with a perverse mouth"
This proverb is interesting by trying to get us to comprehend the signs that we are in the presence of a person who is wicked. What is the tell-tale evidence that a person cannot be trusted? The answer, according to this series of verses, is that the person can be discerned by the twisted corrupt form of speech they use. The word is perverse which means twisted, crooked. It is used for the braiding of the hair where one strand is very difficult to follow through all the twists and turns it takes.
When a person must cover what they really mean by twisting words to make them sound nice or to mean something they don't mean, then you are in the presence of a wicked person – a person who lives outside of the boundaries of the Ten Commandments.
The designation of worthless and wicked is a connection that is not usual. So it bears some attention. Worthless is Belial or Son of Belial. This is connected directly to the Devil as the Lord of the Flies. All who are worthless are ruled by the lord of the worthless. They have become refuse and are destined for the refuse pile to be ruled by the king of the refuse pile. We, in our day, tend to see wickedness as active evil of an extreme sort and worthlessness as harmless slothfulness. There is a stronger connection between the two. The worthless person does not only contribute nothing to the society, they are a parasite on it as well as surely becoming a wicked person who lives outside of the moral boundary structure of God. They cannot survive inside of God's boundary structure, and so they live in the world of iniquity in order to avoid work as much as possible. [i]
The bum on the street who refuses to participate in the economy of the society is not just a harmless derelict but also a wicked person who must survive by a willingness to do whatever it takes to make a living. There are high-class worthless people who survive at a higher income range by doing the sewer work of the wicked.
Notice what this proverb is saying. Can a person say what they mean and mean what they say? If they cannot, then they are possessors of a perverse mouth. This means that they are not only twisted in speech but in actions wicked. Don't miss this relational connection. The better you are at twisting your words, the deeper you are beyond God's moral boundary structure.
This section goes on to give other clues that signal the presence of a wicked person – one who will cheat you: winking with the eyes; scraping or signaling with the feet; pointing with the finger.
Until tomorrow,
Gil Stieglitz