Bible Strands
Proverbs 29:12
If a ruler listens to lies, all his officials will be wicked.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The book of Proverbs addresses a ruler regarding his court, positioned between a teaching on restrained anger and a statement on divine judgment over the poor and oppressor.
The words — מֹ֭שֵׁל (Mo.shel) translates as a ruler, while דְּבַר־ שָׁ֑קֶר (de.var Sha.ker) denotes a word of falsehood.
The thread — The correlation between leadership and deceptive counsel runs through Proverbs 20:8, 1 Samuel 22:8, and 2 Kings 10:6.
Why it lands — The text states that a ruler’s acceptance of falsehood causes his officials to become wicked, requiring readers to audit the truthfulness of the counsel they grant authority.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
If a ruler hearken to lies, all his servants are wicked.
Cross-references
- Proverbs 20:8 A king who sits on a throne to judge sifts out all evil with his eyes.
- 1 Samuel 22:8 Is that why all of you have conspired against me? Not one of you told me that my own son had made a covenant with the son of Jesse. Not one of you has shown concern for me or revealed to me that my son has stirred up my own servant to lie in wait against me, as is the case today.”
- 2 Kings 10:6 Then Jehu wrote them a second letter and said: “If you are on my side, and if you will obey me, then bring the heads of your master’s sons to me at Jezreel by this time tomorrow.” Now the sons of the king, seventy in all, were being brought up by the leading men of the city.
- Psalms 52:2 Your tongue devises destruction like a sharpened razor, O worker of deceit.
- Psalms 101:5 Whoever slanders his neighbor in secret, I will put to silence; the one with haughty eyes and a proud heart, I will not endure.
- 1 Samuel 23:19 Then the Ziphites came up to Saul at Gibeah and said, “Is not David hiding among us in the strongholds at Horesh, on the hill of Hachilah south of Jeshimon?
- 2 Samuel 3:7 Now Saul had a concubine named Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah. So Ish-bosheth questioned Abner, “Why did you sleep with my father’s concubine?”
- 2 Samuel 4:5 Now Rechab and Baanah, the sons of Rimmon the Beerothite, set out and arrived at the house of Ish-bosheth in the heat of the day, while the king was taking his midday nap.
- 1 Kings 21:11 So the elders and nobles who lived in Naboth’s city did as Jezebel had instructed in the letters she had written to them.
- Proverbs 25:23 As the north wind brings forth rain, so a backbiting tongue brings angry looks.