Malice

Malice in the UPDV is not a flash of temper but a settled inward disposition of ill-will toward another person. The word itself surfaces in the New Testament catalogues of vices Christians are told to strip off: "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and railing, be put away from you⁺, with all malice" (Eph 4:31); "anger, wrath, malice, railing, shameful speaking out of your⁺ mouth" (Col 3:8); "living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another" (Tit 3:3). Paul ranks it with "the leaven of malice and wickedness" the festal community must purge (1 Cor 5:8) and tells the Corinthians to remain infants in it while they grow up everywhere else: "in malice be⁺ babes, but in mind be men" (1 Cor 14:20). Romans 1:29 broadens the field still further — "filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity; whisperers." Read across both testaments, the topic clusters under several recurring shapes: envy, human jealousy, the perverse or "froward" heart, bitterness, and the inward poison that becomes outward injury.

Envy as the Engine of Malice

Envy is the disposition the UPDV most consistently names as malice's seedbed. Genesis traces it to the first murder: "but to Cain and to his offering he did not have respect. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell" (Gen 4:5), and "it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him" (Gen 4:8). The same dynamic re-enacts itself with Isaac — "And the Philistines envied him" (Gen 26:14) — and with Joseph: "his brothers envied him; but his father kept the saying in mind" (Gen 37:11), an envy that, like Cain's, ripens into hatred ("they hated him, and could not speak peacefully to him," Gen 37:4) and conspiracy. The wilderness rebellion of Korah works the same way: "they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said to them, You⁺ take too much on yourselves" (Num 16:3). Esther's Haman cannot enjoy his own wealth so long as a single Jew sits unbowed at the gate — "Yet all this avails me nothing, so long as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king's gate" (Est 5:13). Daniel's accusers, finding nothing real to charge, manufacture an occasion against him "concerning the law of his God" (Dan 6:4-5).

The wisdom literature treats envy as poison absorbed by the envier first. "A tranquil heart is the life of the flesh; But envy is the rottenness of the bones" (Prov 14:30). Psalm 37 opens with the warning, "Don't fret yourself because of evildoers, Neither be envious against those who work unrighteousness" (Ps 37:1); the psalmist of Psalm 73 confesses the same temptation, "For I was envious at the arrogant, When I saw the prosperity of the wicked" (Ps 73:3). Proverbs presses the prohibition repeatedly: "Don't envy the man of violence, And choose none of his ways" (Prov 3:31); "Don't let your heart envy sinners" (Prov 23:17); "Don't be envious against evil men; Neither desire to be with them: For their heart studies oppression, And their lips talk of mischief" (Prov 24:1-2). Sirach gives the diagnosis in one line: "Envy and anger shorten days, And anxiety makes gray before the time" (Sir 30:24). The New Testament places envy on the same axis. The forbidden conduct of Romans 13 is "not in strife and jealousy" (Rom 13:13); love itself "does not envy" (1 Cor 13:4); the Christian community is told, "Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another" (Gal 5:26). Peter's renunciation list pairs the inward fault with its tongue: "Putting away therefore all wickedness, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings" (1 Pet 2:1).

Human Jealousy

Where envy resents another's good, jealousy resents another's standing. The UPDV uses the word for the proper zeal of Yahweh and also, in a different register, for the corrosive human passion that overlaps directly with malice. Saul is the paradigmatic case: "And Saul was very angry, and this thing was evil in his eyes; and he said, They have ascribed to David ten thousands, and to me they have ascribed but thousands: and what can he have more but the kingdom? And Saul eyed David from that day and forward" (1 Sam 18:8-9). Joseph's brothers sit at the same point: their father's preference produces hatred and dreams produce more hatred, and the chain ends in a pit. Sirach analyzes the passion almost clinically — "Do not be jealous of a wicked man; For you do not know what his day [will be]" (Sir 9:11); "Do not be jealous of a proud man who prospers; Remember that at the time of death he will not go unpunished" (Sir 9:12); "Do not take counsel with one who dislikes you, And hide your secret from one who is jealous of you" (Sir 37:10); "[There is but] anger and jealousy, anxiety and fear, Terror of death, strife and contention" (Sir 40:5). Domestic jealousy receives its own caution: "Do not be jealous of the wife of your bosom" (Sir 9:1); "Grief of heart and sorrow is a wife jealous of another; The scourge of the tongue are they all" (Sir 26:6); "A fool upbraids ungraciously, And the gift of envious man consumes the eyes" (Sir 18:18). Proverbs does not soften it: "For jealousy is the rage of a [noble] man; And he will not spare in the day of vengeance" (Prov 6:34), and "Wrath is cruel, and anger is overwhelming; But who is able to stand before jealousy?" (Prov 27:4).

The Perverse and Froward Heart

A second cluster of texts characterizes malice not by what the malicious man wants but by the shape of his inward life — what the older English of the UPDV calls "froward" or "perverse." The vocabulary is heart-and-mouth language. "A perverse heart will depart from me: I will know no evil thing" (Ps 101:4). "Those who are perverse in heart are disgusting to Yahweh; But such as are perfect in [their] way are his delight" (Prov 11:20). "For the perverse is disgusting to Yahweh; But his friendship is with the upright" (Prov 3:32). "A man will be commended according to his wisdom; But he who is of a perverse heart will be despised" (Prov 12:8). The same disposition is read off the speech: "Put away from you a wayward mouth, And perverse lips put far from you" (Prov 4:24); "The mouth of the righteous brings forth wisdom; But the perverse tongue will be cut off" (Prov 10:31); "A gentle tongue is a tree of life; But perverseness in it is a breaking of the spirit" (Prov 15:4). The fear of Yahweh is defined against this whole register: "The fear of Yahweh is to hate evil: Pride, and arrogance, and the evil way, And the perverse mouth, I hate" (Prov 8:13). The perverse man's path is its own punishment — "Thorns [and] snares are in the way of the perverse: He who keeps his soul will be far from them" (Prov 22:5); "The integrity of the upright will guide them; But the perverseness of betrayers will destroy them" (Prov 11:3); "Better is the poor who walks in his integrity, Than he who is perverse in [his] ways, though he is rich" (Prov 28:6). Paul's late letters carry the same diagnosis into the church's life: he warns of "wranglings of men corrupted in mind and defrauded of the truth, supposing that godliness is a way of gain" (1 Tim 6:5). Ezekiel sees a whole society deformed in this way — "the city full of wresting [of judgment]: for they say, Yahweh has forsaken the land, and Yahweh does not see" (Ezek 9:9).

Bitterness as the Heart's Residue

Bitterness in the UPDV is malice's residue: what is left in the heart when an injury, real or imagined, is not let go. The Pauline command names it alongside malice itself — "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and railing, be put away from you⁺, with all malice: and be⁺ kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, even as God also in Christ forgave you⁺" (Eph 4:31-32). Hebrews warns the gathered church about the way one such heart contaminates many: "looking carefully lest [there be] any man who falls short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble [you⁺], and by it many be defiled" (Heb 12:15). Romans pulls the indictment from the Psalter: "Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness" (Rom 3:14). James locates it in the heart and calls the wisdom that flows from it "earthly, sensual, devilish": "But if you⁺ have bitter jealousy and faction in your⁺ heart, don't glory and don't lie against the truth. This wisdom is not [a wisdom] that comes down from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where jealousy and faction are, there is confusion and every vile action" (Jas 3:14-16). The Old Testament uses the same image of poisoned fruit. Of apostate Israel Moses says, "For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, And of the fields of Gomorrah: Their grapes are grapes of gall, Their clusters are bitter" (Deut 32:32). Jeremiah turns it on Jerusalem itself: "Your way and your doings have procured these things to you; this is your wickedness; for it is bitter, for it reaches to your heart" (Jer 4:18).

Malice Concealed and Malice Renounced

Malice is rarely confessed openly; the UPDV repeatedly shows it covering itself with affable speech. Proverbs 26 sketches the type: "He who hates dissembles with his lips; But he lays up deceit inside him: When he speaks fair, don't believe him; For there are seven disgusting things in his heart: Though [his] hatred covers itself with guile, His wickedness will be openly shown before the assembly" (Prov 26:24-26). Sirach generalizes: "But he who hates talk has the less malice" (Sir 19:6), and warns that some forms of the disposition are heavier than others — "[There is] little malice like the malice of a woman, May the lot of the wicked fall upon her" (Sir 25:19). Against this whole register the New Testament sets a strict renunciation. The believer is told to "keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Cor 5:8); to remain "babes" in malice while growing up in mind (1 Cor 14:20); to "put away" anger, wrath, malice, and railing (Col 3:8); to take off the whole vice catalogue of "all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity" (Rom 1:29); and, recalling the old self with sober honesty — "we also once were foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving as slaves to diverse desires and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another" (Tit 3:3) — to be kind, tenderhearted, and forgiving in its place (Eph 4:32).