How much does God hate lying? (Proverbs 6:16–19)

olomon—or who­ev­er the author of Proverbs—announces a list. “These six things doth the Lord hate!” he begins. But at once he must cor­rect him­self. “Yea, sev­en,” he decides, “are an abom­i­na­tion to him.”

In rhetoric, we call what has just hap­pened metanoia. It is when you make a state­ment, and then instant­ly cor­rect some part of it. St. Paul uses it in 1 Cor. 7:10: “And unto the mar­ried I com­mand, yet not I, but the Lord.” And in Gal. 2:20: “I am cru­ci­fied with Christ: nev­er­the­less I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” And Jesus uses it in Matt. 11:9: “But what went ye out for to see? A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.” A few more examples–but you get the point.

So why does Solomon (or who­ev­er the author) decide he must increase the num­ber of evils that incur the Lord’s hatred from six to sev­en? It’s not just because the Jews thought sev­en to be the per­fect num­ber. A look at the list will give us some­thing of an idea.

• a proud look
• a lying tongue
• hands that shed inno­cent blood
• an heart that deviseth wicked imag­i­na­tions
• feet that be swift in run­ning to mis­chief
• a false wit­ness that speaketh lies
• he that soweth dis­cord among brethren

Did you catch what I did? I hope so: Lying is on the list two times. These six things doth the Lord hate—but wait, it’s actu­al­ly sev­en, because lying is so bad I have to count it twice.

Pride is on the list once. Mis­chief, once. Even mur­der is there only one time. But lying counts as two abom­i­na­tions. I find that fas­ci­nat­ing.

“I am the truth,” Christ says, and so any offense against truth is an offense against Christ—indeed, against his very iden­ti­ty.

Yes, it’s that bad.