Ninth Word - Exodus 20:16

20:16 – the ninth word is “thou shalt not bear false witness.” This seems more specific than the rest, but I think there is a lot that can go into it. TB says that this is strictly speaking about court proceedings, which kind of can go into the last word where adultery could be convicted, initially, by simply a husband’s word. Thus the severity of the consequences for lying in court can be extreme. He also notes that the word “Torah” means law, so it would make sense that at least some of these “commandments” would pertain to the specifics of the law. I think making it strictly about legal, court issues is too specific to be mentioned as general rules for all the people, so I’m going to go with there being more to it than simply that.

The IM has a pretty good interpretation, saying, “to bear false witness is to testify to or pass along report, insinuations, speculations, or rumors as if they were true, to the hurt of a fellow human being. Sometimes the practice stems from a lack of correct information- sometimes from lack of understanding- sometimes from misunderstandings- sometimes from a vicious disposition to distort and misrepresent.” I think that if nothing else, this represents a more applicable interpretation for us today.

This is definitely something that I struggle with, and for various reasons. None of it were conscious decisions of course, but motivations I realized in hind-sight. I used to be a horrible gossip, telling everyone everything about everyone else. I think that I did that because that’s what I saw growing up so I did that. I also realized later that I think that if I could get someone to share secrets with me about someone else, that meant that I was special and that we had a special bond. Of course that wasn’t true, but that’s what I thought and that’s how it felt at the time. It’s been a LONG road and some serious trouble, but I think that for the most part now I know how to keep my mouth shut, but it is a struggle.

Another thing that I find/found myself doing a lot is exaggerating, and sometimes to the point of ridiculousness. This is some soul searching I’ve done recently, and I’m doing a lot of trauma healing right now, and I think I’ve realized that my motivation for the exaggerations is because for so long no one believed me when I said I was in trouble. And at this point a lot of people that I thought would support me and that I thought I needed their support, didn’t believe me so what I would say would just get more and more outrageous to the point of ridiculousness. If no one would believe the horrors that I have been through, it was like a social experiment to find out at what point would my traumas be SO bad that they had to at least pretend like they were listening. I don’t know if that makes sense. No one listened to me, no one believed me and I used to believe that I needed them to care about what I went through to heal. Ultimately, most people didn’t care, but Jesus does, Jesus cares and in order to heal, that has to be enough.