At the conclusion of chapter 19, King Shlomo sets before us two types of corruption, and in two adjacent verses he decides between them: which of them is worse, and what punishment is fitting for each. Both traits before us are bad traits, and the question is which of them is worse - and the verse that follows addresses this.
עֵד בְּלִיַּעַל יָלִיץ מִשְׁפָּט וּפִי רְשָׁעִים יְבַלַּע אָוֶן׃ (כח) - A worthless witness mocks justice, and the mouth of the wicked swallows iniquity. (28)
נָכוֹנוּ לַלֵּצִים שְׁפָטִים וּמַהֲלֻמוֹת לְגֵו כְּסִילִים׃ (כט) - Judgments are prepared for scoffers, and beatings for the backs of fools. (29)
Rabbeinu Yonah explains the second verse as a decision regarding the question raised in the first verse: who is worse - the scoffing man, who is always searching out the disgrace of others, or the wicked one who conceals his iniquity? Rabbeinu Yonah says: know that the one who mocks justice, his evil is greater. And why? Because out of this negative trait - always seeking fault in people, always seeing the negative - there is nothing to stop him from going all the way to the court and testifying false testimony against people. Therefore the scoffers are worse, and for them there is no remedy.
"Judgments are prepared for scoffers" - Rabbeinu Yonah explains that "judgments" means a death sentence. There is nothing to be done with this scoffer except a death sentence, for if not, he will corrupt the world. There is no hope for the person of the tongue, because the tongue, once it has become accustomed to slander and to words of disgrace, is no longer within the person's control. He has trained it to measure everything according to the desire of his heart that rises within his spirit, and to extract him from this is very difficult.
In contrast, the fool - this is the wicked one spoken of in the previous verse, who does not rule over his desires and conceals his evil deeds, and is not willing for others to be spoken of with disgrace, so that he too will not be reproved. In him there is hope that he will subdue his inclination, and therefore "beatings for the backs of fools": for him, beatings will indeed be effective. Strike him with harsh blows, and there is hope that he will subdue his evil inclination, rule over his limbs, distance himself from doing iniquity, and even reprove others if he sees them doing iniquity. Thus the worthless witness who mocks justice - his sentence is judgments alone, whereas the mouth of the wicked that conceals iniquity - upon him beatings will be effective to straighten him onto the right path.
And back to the previous verse: Rabbeinu Yonah adds a further explanation to "and the mouth of the wicked swallows iniquity." There is a verse in Iyov: "though he sweetens evil in his mouth." When a person has become accustomed to doing evil, the evil is sweetened in his mouth - he has pleasure in it, he has desire in doing evil.
The holy Ohr HaChaim writes about this: they testified before me and told me about those men who are executioners in the king's service - not butchers who make cakes, but "slaughter an animal and prepare it," those whose task is on the guillotine, killing people in the king's service - that they have great desire and immense pleasure at the moment when they put a person to death. We, who have not become accustomed to this, if we need, Heaven forbid, to harm someone, we recoil and are horrified, while that one draws satisfaction from it. How can this be? When a person has become accustomed to evil, "he sweetens evil in his mouth," the evil has already become tasty and sweet to him.
According to this, "and the mouth of the wicked swallows iniquity" is explained: the evil has been so sweetened in the mouth of the wicked one that he swallows the iniquity - he eats it without salt, out of great delight and pleasure. What we look upon as a negative thing and as wickedness, to him is sweet. He swallows iniquity - swallowing it while it is still in his grasp.
The Gaon of Vilna explains: "a worthless witness" is the false witness, and he is a scoundrel (beliyaal). And know this rule: wherever the term "beliyaal" is used, it means one who has no fear of Heaven, who has cast off the yoke - "beli ol," without a yoke, the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven is not upon him. This false witness bears no yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven to perform the mitzvot of Hashem.
And what is "mocks judgment"? Says the Gra: he makes a mockery, a figure of speech, out of the Torah. That is, he claims that the words of the Torah are not binding commands, but rather that the Torah should be viewed as a complete enlightenment that comes to tell a person the way of life in a general sense, what the proper conduct is, but it was never intended that you go and apply every single detail. "They did not really mean that you should go and destroy the entire idolatrous city, but rather the intent is that in your eyes they should be as though destroyed, that you should not relate to them, that they should be like outcasts, but not literally to kill them" - Scripture spoke figuratively. And so with each and every matter, he explains the verses as if they were mere figures of speech, as if these are only ideas that were expressed and not halachot that one must fulfill and carry out. Or he will tell you: this was for a former time, in our day the times have changed, it is not relevant, today one must act differently. Or he will say: do not view these matters literally, they contain immense secrets, and they do not really intend that you do such and such, but rather this is a hint and a secret.
So too, for example, with shaatnez: he will tell you that the intent is not that you refrain from combining wool and linen - "what does the Holy One, blessed be He, care what you wear, wear whatever you like" - but rather "shaatnez" spells the letters "satan az" (a fierce accuser), and when you create a connection between wool and linen this supposedly creates a connection in the upper worlds, strengthening the forces of judgment, and the intent is only that you not perform acts that strengthen the judgments in the world. Now, it is true that shaatnez is a fierce accuser, but he took it to entirely different realms: that the Torah does not speak literally, that there is no prohibition of wool and linen, but rather everything is parables and hints to lofty matters. One who views the Torah in this way is in the category of one who cuts down the plantings, and this is outright heresy. And this is "a worthless witness mocks judgment": one who is a scoundrel, without the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven, relates to all the laws of the Torah as figures of speech.
"And the mouth of the wicked" - these are those who wish to commit transgressions and rebel against Hashem; a figure of speech will not help them. He wants to rebel, what use are figures of speech to him? He says: there is no Creator of the world. Therefore "swallows up iniquity" - he swallows and conceals, saying "I have done no iniquity." Say to him: sir, what you did is a serious matter. He will answer: there is no problem with this, and as for Torah, leave Torah aside. It emerges that the worthless witness, who has no fear of Heaven but knows that there is a Torah, must find excuses: it is not relevant, not for our times, it is by way of hint, it is only a figure of speech. But the wicked one needs no excuses at all - he says there is no judgment, no law, no Torah, nothing, and therefore he simply conceals and says: there is no iniquity, I have done no iniquity, this is not a transgression, where is it written that this is forbidden.
The Metzudat David explains: a person who is in the category of a worthless witness, who comes to testify falsely against his fellow, wants to convince the listeners that his words are correct. What does he do? "Mocks judgment" - when he comes to speak in a case of law and judgment, he will speak in figurative language, in language that speaks of grand things, in lofty and flowery language.
And know this: many times when a person comes to describe something at length, the length comes to conceal a lack of knowledge. Someone once told me: I had a teacher, and every time I did not know something I would write half a folio page, and I would immediately receive an excellent grade. When you know something, you say it in three words. When you do not know, there is much verbiage all around in order to cover for what you do not know. They ask you a pointed question, and you begin: the prophet said this, and that one answered him this, and you tell an entire story - and you did not answer the question. The abundance of words is meant to cover for the fact that I have no answer, and therefore I will speak about everything around it and never touch the point itself.
So too the false witness. When he wants to say something false, he will not answer to the point. They ask: did it happen or not? At what hour? And he opens: listen, I want to tell you, I left the house at such an hour, and behold, suddenly I see that a certain item is missing, I began to investigate who did it - and an entire story. And in the end, when you ask again: can you tell me the hour? He will answer: the hour I do not exactly know. He does not know, and therefore he told many stories all around, in lofty and persuasive language that makes an impression, for he has nothing to sell and cannot state clear facts. This is "mocks judgment" - with the finest figures of speech he will fashion his words so that they will be accepted upon the heart and they will believe him: much rhetoric and lofty language, with no content or substance to it. Someone once said: what is a politician? A person who is able to speak for an entire hour, and afterward you ask what he said - and you have no answer. Is he for or against? "Indeed it is so, but on the other hand we must not forget..." - and everything fits with everyone, words pleasant to everyone's ears, and he said nothing.
And following this: "and the mouth of the wicked swallows up iniquity." When the wicked one wants to say something that is not true, or something that will be accepted upon our ears, he knows that if he testifies about the iniquity in a clear and open manner - it will be said of him that he has an interest, for he comes to testify that so and so did such and such. Therefore he is very cunning: he tells what is ostensibly a different story, and incidentally he slips in the iniquity and the wickedness of the one about whom he is testifying. And what does he gain by this? That they will say: you see, he speaks innocently in passing, he did not come at all to testify about this, only incidentally did we understand from him that so and so did such and such. A person who comes and testifies openly - immediately the questions begin: what is his interest? Who sent him? What does he want? But one who says the matter in a hidden and slipped-in manner always makes the impression that this was not his intent, and in the language of Chazal he is called one who speaks innocently in passing.
Incidentally, know that this is also the most effective method in advertising. Someone will come and tell you "drink Coca-Cola" - you will say: you are going to tell me what to drink? I do not want to. But if they show you a film, in which they shout nothing at you, but rather show the hero of the film opening a bottle, the bubbles rising like a cloud, and he brings it to his lips and nonchalantly takes a sip - at the intermission you buy Coca-Cola. Why? They did not tell me to buy it, but "Coca-Cola belongs to the important, beautiful, talented and successful people." This works ten thousand times more than open advertising. And incidentally, by law it is forbidden to do hidden advertising in a film.
And even more than this: researchers discovered that a film is built from dozens of images per second - image after image after image, like those old reel films where, if you looked at the film, you would see many pictures in sequence. They took a film and slipped into it a single frame showing a bottle of Coca Cola, and they found that the people who watched it bought that very bottle during the intermission. Now it is impossible to perceive a single frame with the eye, and they did not perceive it with the eye at all - but something in the subconscious caught it, and they went and bought. This is astounding: the eye is capable of perceiving even things you think you are not processing, and it transmits them to the brain in the subconscious, and this works upon a person and persuades him. And for this reason it is forbidden by law to do so, for it is disguised brainwashing: when someone tells me openly, I decide whether I want it or not, and I know they are coming to persuade me; but when they do it in a disguised way, I do not feel at all that they are coming to persuade me, and therefore it works upon me far more. This is "פי רשעים יבלע אוון": the wicked man tells of his wicked deed in passing, as if speaking innocently, and this persuades far more than a person who comes to persuade openly.
On "נכונו ללצים שפטים ומהלומות לגו כסילים" Rashi explains that the scoffers are the masters of lashon hara, and for them judgments are prepared. And what are the judgments of the master of lashon hara? Tzaraat, as it is written "זאת תהיה תורת המצורע" - the metzora, who brings out evil (motzi ra) from his mouth, who brings out words of disgrace and evil. This is the scoffer who tells lashon hara.
The Gaon of Vilna explains that "נכונו ללצים שפטים" speaks of the World to Come, of the punishments of the soul, while "ומהלומות לגו כסילים" speaks of the body (gev) itself, the body that is in the grave. Both deal with what comes after death, except that one is above and one is below. And this matter is explained at length in the books of Kabbalah: there is a punishment for a person here in the grave, and there is a punishment for the soul there above.
The punishment here in the grave is called in the language of Chazal chibut hakever: two angels descend to his grave, widen and enlarge it so that there will be room, one grabs his legs and one his hands, and they begin to shake him out like the shaking out of a tallit, in order to remove from him all the dross, and these are harsh and terrible torments. And the one who is saved from this is the one who is buried on Friday, on erev Shabbat - some say from the fifth hour and onward, some say from the sixth hour and onward, and some say even if he passed away in the morning and was buried on Friday, and there are several opinions in this.
And it is written in the holy books that the person who is saved from chibut hakever - even without Friday - is a person who was not attached here to the desires of this world at all, for the desires of this world create dross that clings to a person, and chibut hakever comes to separate these dross. And if a person was not attached at all to this world, even if he passes away in the middle of the week he will not have chibut hakever, or he will have a very light chibut hakever. For what is the purpose of chibut hakever? To bring the soul out of the body. And since this person was attached through desires and pleasures to his body, the soul is fouled and connected and clinging to the body, like wool that is deep, deep within thorns - do you know what it is to extract it? That is to tear it, it cannot be extracted in the ordinary way. Try to extract tufts of wool from within thorns - you end up tearing. So too the person who is captive to desires. In contrast, the person who purified himself, who is not attached to the body and does not belong to its pleasures, with a light shake his soul comes out, and this is what Chazal said "כמשחל בניתא מחלבא" - like drawing a hair out of milk.
I had a neighbor, a Jewish talmid chacham, who passed away on Friday two weeks ago. This Jew lived in a house that had not changed at all from sixty years ago. I went to him during the shiva and I saw it with my own eyes. He has nine sons, all of them bnei Torah, men of learning, who studied in yeshivot, some of them talmidei chachamim and holders of positions. And he himself - sixty years an avreich, sixty years engaged in Torah with diligence, without any position, and forty of those years praying at sunrise (netz). A true Jew, a man of refined form, of gentleness and fear of Heaven.
And in his house for fifty years they did not replace the table. The bookcase - metal shelves as from sixty years ago. The flooring - tiles from the old days, colored tiles, and in several places the color changes, apparently because of changes in the flooring. A house in which time stood still. They would say to him: Abba, replace the bed - he slept on a Sochnut bed, his bed and his wife's bed at two different heights - and he would answer them: why, with this bed you cannot reach the World to Come? His kitchen was like a kitchen of old, narrow as a corridor, with one sink in the middle, and below there were no cabinets but a curtain. A person who lived just as sixty years ago, and he lacked nothing, always happy in his life and content with his lot.
And this Jew passed away on Friday. He finished the netz prayer, went to the sea - he used to immerse in the sea and also go there for his health - immersed, came out of the water and said that he felt something in his heart. They immediately called Magen David Adom, and he said Shema Yisrael, and they examined him and pronounced his death. On that very Friday, two hours before Shabbat, they buried him. They eulogized him with great eulogies beside his house, and important rabbis came and eulogized him as one of the great ones. Truly he was a very special person and a talmid chacham. And he merited to pass away on Friday before Shabbat and to be saved from chibut hakever - for even in his life he had nothing of the matters of this world, and therefore even when he departed he had no chibut hakever, for he was not attached at all to the reality of this world.
Let us return to the explanation of the Vilna Gaon: "Judgments are prepared for scoffers" - in the World to Come, in the soul; "and blows for the back of fools" - in the body, in the grave. This is the meaning of "The heavens shall reveal his iniquity, and the earth shall rise up against him." What is "his iniquity"? The punishment, as in "My iniquity is greater than I can bear," which means my punishment. When the Holy One, blessed be He, decrees a punishment - "the heavens shall reveal his iniquity," the matter first comes about in the heavens, and from the heavens the soul is, as it were, brought down to the earth, and then the earth carries out judgment: "and the earth shall rise up against him" - it rises up against him to inflict the punishment upon him. The earth judges the body, and in the heavens the soul is judged - "Hashem founded the earth with wisdom, He established the heavens with understanding."
Therefore the Gaon says: the scoffer is the opposite of the Torah, for the Torah is from the heavens, and he mocks it and does not accept it and ridicules the idea that the Torah is from heaven - therefore his judgment is in the heavens, in the soul. The fool, by contrast, is the opposite of wisdom, which is in the earth, for he follows the desires of his heart and is drawn after earthly and physical matters, and is not drawn after the wisdom of the Torah that he should have learned here on the earth - therefore he is judged here, in the body, in the earth, through the affliction of the grave.
The Ralbag explains the verse according to its plain meaning, with regard to a person and his conduct with the creatures here on earth. A person who mocks others, the scoffers who laugh at this one and joke about him and ridicule him, will easily find people who will judge him with great judgments: you angered so-and-so, and suddenly you find yourself getting beaten, for it is dangerous to anger people. "Judgments are prepared for scoffers" - beware, people will abuse you, punish you and chastise you for mocking them.
"And blows for the back of fools" - they will have fractures and blows to their bodies, for the fool in his foolishness will do all sorts of bad things against people, act against them and harm them. And do you think this will be for free? Not for free - you will receive blows for it from other people. And there is no need to understand that blows are specifically beatings; rather, there are other kinds of blows: you need a loan, and you come to ask someone, and suddenly you receive a slap in the face from him - "I have no way to give you, I cannot right now." And why? Because you fall into the category of a scoffer: all along you ridiculed him and laughed at him and disgraced him, and now when you need him you come and grovel before him? From scoffing you receive judgments. Likewise when you behave toward him with foolishness - you will receive blows, and not necessarily physical ones: sometimes a different blow is harder, you expect help from him and he will not help you - you have received a blow, because you did not walk in the proper way.
The Ralbag adds that it is possible that the verse is a continuation of what was said before it. "A worthless witness scorns justice" - who is the worthless witness? A person who tells lying tales in court, who gives testimony of worthlessness. This person will mislead the wise men sitting in judgment: he will tell them stories that never happened, invent inventions, describe very elaborate descriptions from his imagination that have no connection to reality, and mislead the judges who judge the case. About this Shlomo comes and says "Judgments are prepared for scoffers" - these scoffers, those who give false testimony, judgments are prepared for them, for they commit a great evil in misleading the wise man. Therefore one must be careful, says the Ralbag, to give only truthful testimony and to cling to the truth until his end, for in the end he will pay a very heavy price for his deeds.
The Ralbag adds that even an error in a small matter can cause a complete corruption of the judgment, and he brings a parable for this: sometimes when it is cloudy, a star will appear farther from another star than the true distance between them, and he will come and testify about it, and on this basis they may render an erroneous verdict. And the lesson: sometimes we are not lying, but it seems to us that this is how it was - "I am not one hundred percent sure, but I think that is how it was." If you are not one hundred percent sure - you may not testify. Why? Because the imagination misleads, and as it is said, "I said in my haste, all men are liars": when a person says things without checking, or when he is hasty, he easily arrives at falsehood and lies. Therefore do not testify unless you have clear and absolute facts, for if not, "a worthless witness scorns justice," and through this he will receive, Heaven forbid, a terrible punishment, for judgments are prepared for scoffers.
And who are the fools here, according to the Ralbag? People who hold corrupt views - they are the ones called fools, and their foolishness deserves that their bodies be broken, since they incline after the physical desires, and this is what drives them to assist false testimony and to carry out the will of those above them, what Izevel wants. So acts the judge who falls under "the mouth of the wicked swallows up iniquity."
About this Shlomo comes and says: know that there is judgment and there is a Judge, and in the end these wicked ones will pay the account. "Prepared for scoffers" - the scoffers are those of "a worthless witness scorns justice," those people who were hired to testify falsely, and for them judgments are prepared, "and you shall do to him as he schemed." "And blows for the back of fools" - these are the wicked judges, and for them blows and beatings from the heavens are prepared. And so we saw in the end, for it was said to Achav: in the place where the dogs licked the blood of Navot, the dogs will lick your blood - "Have you murdered and also taken possession?" Everyone who took part in the wicked trial will in the end give an accounting: the scoffers - judgments are prepared for them, and also the fools, the judges who are "the mouth of the wicked swallows up iniquity," will pay a heavy price for the corrupt deeds they did.
The two verses that conclude the chapter set the scoffer and the fool opposite one another. The scoffer, who has grown accustomed to searching out fault in every person, and from there his path to false testimony is short, and who turns the laws of the Torah into mere figures of speech and hints, has no remedy, and his sentence is punishments: in his soul above, and through affliction and judgment below. The fool, who is drawn after the desires of his heart and conceals his deeds until "evil is sweet in his mouth" and he swallows iniquity with pleasure, still has hope, and therefore "blows are prepared for the backs of fools," through bodily suffering here and in the grave. From here comes a great moral lesson: to beware of the language of rhetoric that covers over a lack of truth, of words slipped in as if by the way, which are the most persuasive of falsehoods, and of any testimony that lacks absolute certainty; and to beware of attachment to the desires of this world, which is what attaches the dross to the soul, for one who is not attached to this world, his soul departs as easily as drawing a hair out of milk.