Lectionary Calendar
Monday, June 30th, 2025
the Week of Proper 8 / Ordinary 13
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Read the Bible

Literal Standard Version

Psalms 50:20

You sit, you speak against your brother, || You give slander against a son of your mother.

Bible Study Resources

Concordances:

- Nave's Topical Bible - Falsehood;   Gossip;   Slander;   Wicked (People);   Scofield Reference Index - Judgments;   Thompson Chain Reference - Backbiting;   Evil;   Silence-Speech;   Slander;   Speaking, Evil;   The Topic Concordance - Forgetting;   Glory;   Reproof;   Salvation;   Speech/communication;   Wickedness;   Torrey's Topical Textbook - Slander;  

Dictionaries:

- American Tract Society Bible Dictionary - Asaph;   Psalms, the Book of;   Sacrifice;   Bridgeway Bible Dictionary - Gossip;   Wrath;   Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible - Asaph;   English Versions;   Gift, Giving;   Greek Versions of Ot;   Jonah;   Psalms;   Sin;   People's Dictionary of the Bible - God;   Psalms the book of;  

Encyclopedias:

- The Jewish Encyclopedia - Bat Ḳol;   Calumny;  

Parallel Translations

Christian Standard Bible®
You sit, maligning your brother,slandering your mother’s son.
Hebrew Names Version
You sit and speak against your brother. You slander your own mother's son.
King James Version
Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine own mother's son.
English Standard Version
You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother's son.
New Century Version
You speak against your brother and lie about your mother's son.
New English Translation
You plot against your brother; you slander your own brother.
Amplified Bible
"You sit and speak against your brother; You slander your own mother's son.
New American Standard Bible
"You sit and speak against your brother; You slander your own mother's son.
World English Bible
You sit and speak against your brother. You slander your own mother's son.
Geneva Bible (1587)
Thou sittest, and speakest against thy brother, and slanderest thy mothers sonne.
Legacy Standard Bible
You sit and speak against your brother;You slander your own mother's son.
Berean Standard Bible
You sit and malign your brother; you slander your own mother's son.
Contemporary English Version
you sat around gossiping, ruining the reputation of your own relatives."
Complete Jewish Bible
you sit and speak against your kinsman, you slander your own mother's son.
Darby Translation
Thou sittest [and] speakest against thy brother, thou revilest thine own mother's son:
Easy-to-Read Version
You sit around talking about people, finding fault with your own brothers.
George Lamsa Translation
You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mothers son.
Good News Translation
You are ready to accuse your own relatives and to find fault with them.
Lexham English Bible
You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your mother's son.
Literal Translation
You sit; you speak against your brother; you give fault to the son of your mother.
Miles Coverdale Bible (1535)
Thou syttest and speakest agaynst thy brother, yee and slaundrest thine owne mothers sonne.
American Standard Version
Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; Thou slanderest thine own mother's son.
Bible in Basic English
You say evil of your brother; you make false statements against your mother's son.
JPS Old Testament (1917)
Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine own mother's son.
King James Version (1611)
Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine owne mothers sonne.
Bishop's Bible (1568)
Thou sattest and spakedst agaynst thy brother: yea and hast slaundered thine owne mothers sonne.
Brenton's Septuagint (LXX)
Thou didst sit and speak against thy brother, and didst scandalize thy mother’s son.
English Revised Version
Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine own mother's son.
Wycliffe Bible (1395)
Thou sittynge spakist ayens thi brother, and thou settidist sclaundir ayens the sone of thi modir;
Update Bible Version
You sit and speak against your brother; You slander your own mother's son.
Webster's Bible Translation
Thou sittest [and] speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thy own mother's son.
New King James Version
You sit and speak against your brother; You slander your own mother's son.
New Living Translation
You sit around and slander your brother— your own mother's son.
New Life Bible
You sit and speak against your brother. You talk against your own mother's son.
New Revised Standard
You sit and speak against your kin; you slander your own mother's child.
J.B. Rotherham Emphasized Bible
Thou wouldst sit down - Against thine own brother, wouldst thou speak, Against thine own mother's son, wouldst thou expose a fault: -
Douay-Rheims Bible
(49-20) Sitting thou didst speak against thy brother, and didst lay a scandal against thy mother’s son:
Revised Standard Version
You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother's son.
Young's Literal Translation
Thou sittest, against thy brother thou speakest, Against a son of thy mother givest slander.
New American Standard Bible (1995)
"You sit and speak against your brother; You slander your own mother's son.

Contextual Overview

16And to the wicked God has said: What to you—to recount My statutes? That you lift up My covenant on your mouth? 17Indeed, you have hated instruction, || And cast My words behind you. 18If you have seen a thief, || Then you are pleased with him, || And your portion [is] with adulterers. 19You have sent forth your mouth with evil, || And your tongue joins deceit together, 20You sit, you speak against your brother, || You give slander against a son of your mother.21These you did, and I kept silent, || You have thought that I am like you, || I reprove you, and set in array before your eyes. 22Now understand this, || You who are forgetting God, || Lest I tear, and there is no deliverer. 23He who is sacrificing praise honors Me, || As for him who makes a way, || I cause him to look on the salvation of God!

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

speakest: Psalms 31:18, Matthew 5:11, Luke 22:65

slanderest: Leviticus 19:16, Proverbs 10:18, 1 Timothy 3:11, Titus 2:3, Revelation 12:10

thine own: Matthew 10:21

Reciprocal: Job 15:5 - thou choosest Psalms 101:5 - Whoso Jeremiah 6:28 - walking Ezekiel 22:9 - men that carry tales Ephesians 4:31 - evil speaking

Cross-References

Genesis 37:4
and his brothers see that their father has loved him more than any of his brothers, and they hate him, and have not been able to speak [to] him peaceably.
Genesis 50:5
My father caused me to swear, saying, Behold, I am dying; in my burying-place which I have prepared for myself in the land of Canaan, there you bury me; and now, please let me go up and bury my father, then I return";
Genesis 50:8
and all the house of Joseph, and his brothers, and the house of his father; only their infants, and their flock, and their herd, have they left in the land of Goshen;
Genesis 50:13
and his sons carry him away to the land of Canaan, and bury him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham bought with the field for a possession of a burying-place, from Ephron the Hittite, on the front of Mamre.
Genesis 50:15
And the brothers of Joseph see that their father is dead, and say, "Perhaps Joseph hates us, and certainly returns to us all the evil which we did with him."
Genesis 50:16
And they give a charge for Joseph, saying, "Your father commanded before his death, saying,
Genesis 50:17
Thus you say to Joseph: Ah, now, please bear with the transgression of your brothers and their sin, for they have done you evil; and now, please bear with the transgression of the servants of the God of your father"; and Joseph weeps in their speaking to him.
Genesis 50:18
And his brothers also go and fall before him, and say, "Behold, we [are] to you for servants."
Genesis 50:20
As for you, you devised evil against me, [but] God devised it for good, in order to do as [at] this day, to keep alive a numerous people;
Psalms 56:5
All the day they wrest my words, || All their thoughts [are] for evil concerning me,

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Thou sittest,.... Either in the chair of Moses, or on the seat of judgment, in the great sanhedrim of the nation; or, as Aben Ezra paraphrases it, "in the seat of the scornful";

[and] speakest against thy brother; even to pass sentence upon him, to put him to death for professing faith in Christ, Matthew 10:21;

thou slanderest thine own mother's son; the apostles and disciples of Christ, who were their brethren and kinsmen according to the flesh; and even our Lord Jesus Christ himself, who was bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother - To the general character of falsehood and slander there is now added the fact that they were guilty of this in the most aggravated manner conceivable - against their nearest relations, the members of their own families. They were not only guilty of the crime against neighbors - against strangers - against persons to whom they sustained no near relationship; but against those of their own households - those whose characters, on that account, ought to have been especially dear to them. The words ““thou sittest”” probably refer to the fact that they would do this when enjoying social contact with them; in confidential conversation; when words of peace, and not of slander, might be properly expected. The word “brother” “might” be used as denoting any other man, or any one of the same nation; but the phrase which is added, “thine own mother’s son,” shows that it is here to be taken in the strictest sense.

Thou slanderest - literally, “Thou givest to ruin.” Prof. Alexander renders it, “Thou wilt aim a blow.” The Septuagint, the Vulgate, Luther, and DeWette understand it of slander.

Thine own mother’s son - It is to be remembered that where polygamy prevailed there would be many children in the same family who had the same father, but not the same mother. The nearest relationship, therefore, was where there was the same mother as well as the same father. To speak of a brother, in the strictest sense, and as implying the nearest relationship, it would be natural to speak of one as having the same mother. The idea here is, that while professing religion, and performing its external rites with the most scrupulous care, they were guilty of the basest crimes, and showed an entire want of moral principle and of natural affection. External worship, however zealously performed, could not be acceptable in such circumstances to a holy God.


 
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