Verse 12. He who is nobody in deeds is often strong in words. He whose hands are idle has a tongue anything but idle; and he tries by words suited to men's humours to win that favour which he cannot by deeds.--_Cartwright._ "Walketh" implies _progress_ in _evil,_ as the tendency of all sin is to grow more and more inveterate.--_Fausset._ Every idle man is a "naughty" man; _is_, or ere long, _will be_, for by doing nothing men learn to do evil. And "thou wicked and slothful servant," saith our Saviour (Matt. xxv. 26). He putteth no difference between the idle person and the wicked person. The devil will not long suffer such an one to be idle, but will soon set him to work. Idleness is the hour of temptation.--_Trapp._ Verse 13. He conveys his meanings, and carries on his scheme, and promotes his ends, in every sly, covert, unexpected way.--_Wardlaw._ Not speech only, but all other means by which man holds intercourse with man, are turned to instruments of fraud and falsehood. The wink which tells the accomplice that the victim is already snared, the gestures with foot and hand, half of deceit, half of mockery--these would betray him to anyone who was not blind.--_Plumptre._ Verse 14. The wise man had showed before the outward rivulets, now he shows the inward fountain, a corrupt heart. This is added lest we should think that only outward signs and gestures are evil. If neither by outward signs nor gestures a wicked man dare express himself, yet his heart is evil.--_Francis Taylor._ As the agriculturist applies himself wholly to the ploughing and sowing of his land, so the froward gives himself wholly to iniquity, seeking his harvest of gain, or of enjoyment of malignity, in traducing or lying, or in praising with words whilst all the time traducing by signs.--_Fausset._ Where frowardness soweth the field, what can grow but contentions only? But these are first sown in the heart by mischievous devices, and their being come to a ripeness, then are they gathered, and are again sown in the outward actions of discord, one harvest serving to bring on another until they bring the seedsman to the harvest of destruction. The force of the verse is, that when wickedness is silent outwardly, it is devising mischief inwardly, that it may practice it the more abundantly.--_Jermin._ Verse 15. _Therefore_, if a thing be so ruinous; if it be a fountain of sin; if it be sending forth corruption in such a manner as to increase the mass of it, and never diminish it; if it be putting forth causes of quarrel both with God and man, then that thing must be crushed. We would expect a sharp, clean end. If it be a root, it must be threaded to its very eye, and all the life of it must be traced and crushed quite out of it in the soil.--_Miller._ The word "suddenly" shows the vanity of the sinner's hope that he shall have the time or the gift of repentance (Job. xxi. 17, 18; Psa. lxiii. 19).--_Fausset._