Talebearer

The talebearer in scripture is the man or woman whose tongue circulates secrets, whispers reports, and slips reproach against a fellow man. The figure shows up first in the Levitical law, sharpens to an aphorism in Proverbs, broadens into the apostolic vice lists of backbiters, whisperers, and busybodies, and is countered throughout by the discipline of guarding the mouth and bridling the tongue.

The Levitical prohibition

The earliest and bluntest word stands in the Holiness Code: "You will not go up and down as a talebearer among your relatives: you will not stand against the blood of your fellow man: I am Yahweh" (Lev 19:16). The talebearer's circuit through the kin group is set alongside standing against another's blood — the two are listed together as one prohibition, sealed with the divine name.

The same line is drawn in the entrance liturgy of Psalm 15. The question is who may sojourn in Yahweh's tabernacle and stay in his holy hill (Ps 15:1). The answer names character: "He who walks uprightly, and works righteousness, And speaks truth in his heart" (Ps 15:2), and immediately, "He who does not slander with his tongue, Nor does evil to his friend, Nor takes up a reproach against his fellow man" (Ps 15:3). To slander, to do evil to a friend, to pick up a reproach against a fellow man — these three together disqualify a worshipper from the holy hill.

The talebearer in Proverbs

Proverbs returns to the talebearer repeatedly and treats him as a domestic incendiary. He breaks confidences: "He who goes about as double-tongued reveals secrets; But he who is of a faithful spirit conceals a matter" (Pr 11:13). He severs friendships: "He who covers a transgression seeks love; But he who harps on a matter separates best friends" (Pr 17:9). He is to be avoided: "He who goes about as a talebearer reveals secrets; Therefore don't company with him who opens his lips wide" (Pr 20:19).

His effect on a community is fire that needs only fuel to keep burning. "For lack of wood the fire goes out; And where there is no whisperer, contention ceases" (Pr 26:20). "[As] coals are to hot embers, and wood to fire, So is a contentious man to inflame strife" (Pr 26:21). And the appeal of his words explains why they spread: "The words of a whisperer are as dainty morsels, And they go down into the innermost parts" (Pr 26:22; cf. Pr 18:8). The whisperer's parallel work is set out one chapter earlier: "A perverse man scatters abroad strife; And a whisperer separates best friends" (Pr 16:28).

Proverbs ranges further to the slanderer and the lying mouth. "He who hides hatred is of lying lips; And he who utters a slander is a fool" (Pr 10:18). "With his mouth the godless man destroys his fellow man; But through knowledge the righteous will be delivered" (Pr 11:9). "He who despises his fellow man is void of wisdom; But a man of understanding holds his peace" (Pr 11:12). The remedy presented is sheer brevity: "In the multitude of words transgression does not cease; But he who refrains his lips does wisely" (Pr 10:19).

Backbiting and whispering

The same picture carries into the Psalter and the prophets, but with the talebearer now turned against the speaker himself. "All who hate me whisper together against me; Against me they devise my hurt" (Ps 41:7). "You sit and speak against your brother; You slander your own mother's son" (Ps 50:20). The royal psalmist makes it a matter of policy: "Whoever secretly slanders his fellow man, I will destroy him: I will not allow him who has a high look and a proud heart" (Ps 101:5). And Jeremiah extends the warning to the whole society: "Take⁺ heed every one of his fellow man, and don't trust⁺ in any brother; for every brother will completely supplant, and every fellow man will go about with slanders" (Jer 9:4).

The smoothness of the talebearer's speech masks the violence inside it. "His mouth was smooth as butter, But his heart was war: His words were softer than oil, Yet they were drawn swords" (Ps 55:21). "For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; Their inward part is much wickedness; Their throat is an open tomb; They flatter with their tongue" (Ps 5:9). "His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and oppression: Under his tongue is mischief and iniquity" (Ps 10:7). "Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have used deceit: The poison of asps is under their lips" (Rom 3:13).

The apostolic vice lists name the same characters by their function. Paul fears finding in Corinth "strife, jealousy, wraths, factions, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults" (2 Cor 12:20). The Roman list places "whisperers" alongside the malice of the unrighteous: "being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, hateful to God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil things" (Rom 1:29-30). And Proverbs draws the meteorology: "The north wind brings forth rain: So does a backbiting tongue an angry countenance" (Pr 25:23).

False accusation

Tale-bearing edges over into outright false accusation. Eli, mistaking Hannah's silent prayer at the sanctuary, charges, "How long will you be drunk? Put your wine away from you" (1 Sam 1:14). Job's friends repeat the slander: "But put forth your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will renounce you to your face" (Job 2:5); and Eliphaz invents a debt: "For you have taken pledges of your brother for nothing, And stripped the naked of their clothing" (Job 22:6). The captain at the gate of Benjamin lays hold on Jeremiah with a falsehood: "And he laid hold on Jeremiah the prophet, saying, You are falling away to the Chaldeans" (Jer 37:13). The Pharisees watch Jesus to find a charge: "And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the Sabbath; that they might find how to accuse him" (Lk 6:7). Peter's counsel for those slandered is the witness of conduct itself: "yet with meekness and fear, having a good conscience; that, in what you⁺ are spoken against, they may be put to shame who revile your⁺ good manner of life in Christ" (1 Pet 3:16).

Instances

The narrative books supply specific cases. The boy Joseph "brought the evil report of [his brothers] to their father" (Gen 37:2), and the report becomes part of the breach that ends with him sold into Egypt. After Abner came in peace to David, "When Joab and all the host that was with him had come, they told Joab, saying, Abner the son of Ner came to the king, and he has sent him away, and he has gone in peace" (2 Sam 3:23) — and Joab uses the report to murder Abner under cover of a private word. The fullest case is Sanballat's open letter to Nehemiah, charging that he plans to rebel: "It is reported among the nations, and Gashmu says it, that you and the Jews think to rebel; for which cause you are building the wall: and you would be their king, according to these words. And you have also appointed prophets to preach of you at Jerusalem, saying, There is a king in Judah: and now it will be reported to the king according to these words" (Neh 6:6-7). Nehemiah's reply names the report a fabrication: "There are no such things done as you say, but you feign them out of your own heart" (Neh 6:8).

The tongue restrained

Against the talebearer, scripture sets the discipline of guarded speech. "Keep your tongue from evil, And your lips from speaking guile" (Ps 34:13). "He who guards his mouth keeps his soul; [But] he who opens his lips wide will have destruction" (Pr 13:3). "Whoever keeps his mouth and his tongue Keeps his soul from troubles" (Pr 21:23). "Even a fool, when he holds his peace, is counted wise; When he shuts his lips, he is [esteemed as] prudent" (Pr 17:28). James pushes the same point into the bond between speech and religion: "If any man thinks himself to be religious, while he doesn't bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this man's religion is useless" (Jas 1:26). "And the tongue is a fire: the world of iniquity among our members is the tongue, which defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the wheel of nature, and is set on fire by hell" (Jas 3:6). And the directive against speaking against the brother is direct: "Don't speak one against another, brothers. He who speaks against a brother, or judges his brother, speaks against the law, and judges the law" (Jas 4:11).

Peter draws the same line for the Christian assembly. "Putting away therefore all wickedness, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings" (1 Pet 2:1). "For, He who would love life, And see good days, Let him refrain his tongue from evil, And his lips that they speak no guile" (1 Pet 3:10). Paul's brief to the Ephesians is parallel: "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and railing, be put away from you⁺, with all malice" (Eph 4:31); and to Titus, "to speak evil of no man, not to be contentious, to be gentle, showing all meekness toward all men" (Titus 3:2).

Vain talkers and busybodies

A specific subspecies of the talebearer is the busybody who circulates from house to house. Of younger widows Paul writes, "And besides they learn also [to be] idle, going about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not" (1 Tim 5:13). The pastoral epistles return repeatedly to the type: "For there are also many unruly men, vain talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision" (Titus 1:10). Their counter is "sound speech, that can't be condemned; that he who is of the contrary part may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of us" (Titus 2:8). Diotrephes is the third epistle's case study: "Therefore, if I come, I will bring to remembrance his works which he does, talking foolishly against us with wicked words. And not content with this, he doesn't receive the brothers either, and he forbids and casts out of the church those who would" (3 Jn 1:10).

The wisdom of Ben Sira

Sirach amplifies the same chord. The tongue is the man's downfall: "Glory and shame are in the hand of one who speaks rashly; And the tongue of a man is his fall" (Sir 5:13). Restraint is blessing: "Blessed is the common man whose mouth has not grieved him; And whose heart would not bring judgment on him" (Sir 14:1); "Blessed is he who has not slipped with his tongue, And he who has not served an inferior" (Sir 25:8). And the talebearer named in three forms is feared above death: "Of three things my heart is afraid, And concerning a fourth I am in great fear: Slander in the city, an assembly of the multitude, And a false accusation; worse than death are they all" (Sir 26:5). The whisper is itself a lash: "Grief of heart and sorrow is a wife jealous of another; The scourge of the tongue are they all" (Sir 26:6).