Proverbs 26:19 · World English Bible
Proverbs 26:19 Meaning Is the Man Who Deceives His Neighbor
is the man who deceives his neighbor and says, “Am I not joking?”
What does Proverbs 26:19 mean?
To wound and then call it play is guilt hiding its own hand, for the ego attacks and at once denies that any attack was meant, needing the harm done yet fearing to own it. Calling injury a game is how a frightened mind keeps its innocence on the surface while the blow is struck underneath, so the neighbour is hurt and no one seems to have hurt him.
From the Christian Psychology reading below.
Proverbs 26:19 through 1 lens
The same verse, read by one tradition.
Christian Psychology
CHRISTIAN PSYCHOLOGY
Christian Psychology
To wound and then call it play is guilt hiding its own hand, for the ego attacks and at once denies that any attack was meant, needing the harm done yet fearing to own it. Calling injury a game is how a frightened mind keeps its innocence on the surface while the blow is struck underneath, so the neighbour is hurt and no one seems to have hurt him.
The deceiver and the deceived are one mind divided against itself. When the pretended lightness is seen for the cover it is, the wish to injure loses its disguise and its purpose together, and the brother stands there having never been a target at all.
Neighbour: the brother the mind uses as the place to set its guilt, seen as separate so he can be quietly harmed
Christian Psychology lensGo deeper in the app
Christian Psychology lens
Live Proverbs 26:19 today
- Think back over the last few days to a joke you made at someone's expense, the kind you defended as harmless. Say the plain version of it to yourself, with no laugh attached, and let it be what it was.
- If you landed a sharp line in a group chat and then added a winking emoji to soften it, go back and say the simple thing: that was unkind, I am sorry. No explanation of what you really meant.
- When someone teases you in a meeting and then says they were kidding, resist the urge to even the score with a cleverer line. Let it drop, and watch how fast the whole thing loses its heat.
Where am I calling something playful because I am not ready to call it what it is?
The same truth in other traditions
Zen
A blow dressed as a joke is still a blow, and the hand that strikes while smiling has to forget what it is doing. Zen asks only that you look straight at the hand.
Stoicism · Epictetus
What harms a person is not the event but the judgment carried about it, and the one who pretends his cruelty was nothing has simply hidden the judgment from himself.
Taoism · Zhuangzi
If an empty boat bumps yours you feel nothing, but if someone is in it you shout. Zhuangzi says the anger is in the person you imagine, not in the knock.
Free · No account needed
Read all of Proverbs 26 through 17 lenses
Lensightful opens every verse of the Bible through the traditions you choose. Save readings, ask a follow-up question, and get one verse a day.
Get Lensightful on the App Store