13 One who brings gossip betrays a confidence, but one who is of a trustworthy spirit is one who keeps a secret.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The man who comes to us with tales about others will reveal our secrets also. Faithfulness is shown, not only in doing what a man has been commissioned to do, but in doing it quietly and without garrulity.
A talebearer - הולך רכיל holech rachil, the walking busybody, the trader in scandal.
Revealeth secrets - Whatever was confided to him he is sure to publish abroad. The word means a hawker, or travelling chapman. Such are always great newsmongers; and will tell even their own secrets, rather than have nothing to say.
A talebearer revealeth secrets,.... The Arabic version adds, in the congregation, openly and publicly; that goes about with tales from place to place, who is like a walking merchant or peddler, as the word (l) signifies; who takes up his wares at one place, and exposes them to sale, and vends them at another; so a talebearer, he goes from house to house, and picks up tales at one place and carries them to another and tells them; and as by his going about he gets into the secrets of persons and families, or is intrusted with them, his character not being known, he reveals them to others, and so breaks the trust committed to him see 1-Timothy 5:13. The Targum and Syriac version render it "an accuser"; and the same name is given to the devil in the New Testament, and indeed such a man is no better;
but he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter; that is "faithful" to his friend, that trusts him with his secrets, of which there are but few; he "conceals the matter" he is entrusted with: "the things", as the Septuagint version; the secrets which are imparted to him; or "the word" (m) that he has heard, and has been spoken to him in privacy, and in strict friendship: or he "covers the matter" (n) or thing; he hides the infirmities of his friend and neighbour, and does not expose them as the talebearer does; see 1-Peter 4:8.
(l) "obambulat ut mercator", Tigurine version; "qui incedit nundinator", Schultens. (m) "verbum", Pagninus, Montanus, Mercerus, Baynus. (n) "tegit rem", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "velat negotium", Schultens.
A faithful man will not disclose what he is trusted with, unless the honour of God and the real good of society require it.
tale-bearer--(Compare Margin), one trading as a peddler in scandal, whose propensity to talk leads him to betray confidence.
13 He who goeth about tattling revealeth secrets;
But he who is of a faithful spirit concealeth a matter.
The tattler is called רכיל (intensive form of רכל), from his going hither and thither. אנשׁי רכיל, Ezekiel 22:9, are men given to tattling, backbiters; הולך רכיל (cf. Leviticus 19:16), one of the tattlers or backbiters goes, a divulger of the matter, a tell-tale. It is of such an one that the proverb speaks, that he reveals the secret (סוד, properly the being close together for the purpose of private intercourse, then that intercourse itself, vid., at Psalm 25:14); one has thus to be on his guard against confiding in him. On the contrary, a נאמן־רוּח, firmus (fidus) spiritu, properly one who is established, or reflexively one who proves himself firm and true (vid., at Genesis 15:6), conceals a matter, keeps it back from the knowledge and power of another. Zckler rightly concludes, in opposition to Hitzig, from the parallelism that the הולך רכיל is subject; the arrangement going before also shows that this is the "ground-word" (Ewald); in Proverbs 20:19 the relation is reversed: the revealer of secrets is rightly named (cf. Sir. 27:16, ὁ ἀποκαλύπτων μυστήρια, κ.τ.λ.).
Secrets - Such things as were committed to his trust with a charge of secrecy.
*More commentary available at chapter level.