Guarding Your Neighbor’s Name
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” — Exodus 20:15
Last week we looked at how the Law thundered, “You shall not steal,” and we saw that theft is not only the taking of silver or barns, but the plundering of courage, joy, and dignity through corrosive words. This week, the Law strikes the same wound with sharper steel: “You shall not bear false witness.”
If the Eighth Commandment defends your neighbor’s estate, the Ninth guards something far more fragile and far more glorious—his name. And in Scripture, a man’s name is worth more than his gold.
THE PRECIOUSNESS OF A NAME
“A good name is better than fine perfume.” — Ecclesiastes 7:1
In the ancient world, perfume was rare and extravagant, reserved for kings and wedding feasts, treasured for how its fragrance lingered like glory. Yet Solomon declares your neighbor’s reputation worth more still. To tarnish it—whether by lies, insinuations, or cowardly silences that let others assume the worst—is not a small sin. It is soul-vandalism. It is the quiet murder of honor.
In Hebrew, witness (ʿēd) carries legal gravity. The courtroom is in view. To slander, or to stand mute when truth would defend your brother, is to become Cain again, shrugging, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The Ninth Commandment thunders its reply: Yes. You are. And if you watch your brother’s name bleed in the street while you look the other way, his blood stains your hands.
THE DEVIL’S DIALECT
Revelation 12:10 names Satan “the accuser of the brethren.” Accusation is his native tongue. Every time you disparage a neighbor, every time you salt a conversation with suspicion, every time you omit just enough truth for a reputation to rot, you are speaking fluent devil.
Whispered rumors are not harmless. They are hellish. They echo the serpent’s hiss in Eden, where a single crooked word toppled God’s reputation in Eve’s mind: “Did God really say…?”
And cowardly silence will not shield you. Leviticus 5:1 condemns the man who withholds testimony when truth is required. To let a brother’s name be dragged without your defense is to commit perjury by omission. It is to stand with the mob against Jesus Christ Himself, who said, “Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for Me” (Matthew 25:45).
Silence is not neutral. Silence is gasoline.
WHEN SILENCE BURNS
Imagine you see a house on fire. You know the family is inside. But you fear embarrassment, so you keep quiet. They perish—and your silence becomes complicity.
So it is when you watch someone’s name burn down in a hallway of whispers and you withhold the water of truth.
Husbands, when you belittle your wife’s strengths with a mocking joke, you carve fissures into her name.
Wives, when you confide your husband’s faults to friends instead of to him, you unravel the dignity God stitched around him.
Parents, when you label your children “lazy” or “difficult,” you etch their identity in acid.
Children, when you mock your parents behind their backs, you mock the God who crowned them with authority.
And Christians, when you cut down elders, brothers, or sisters with gossip dressed up as “concern,” you are not defending truth—you are transcribing for the Accuser.
THE GOSPEL’S RESCUE
If the Law ended here, every tongue would stand condemned. Who among us has not stained a reputation with careless words or cowardly silence?
But thanks be to God, the Gospel speaks. Jesus Christ was robbed of His reputation, branded a glutton and a drunkard (Matthew 11:19), slandered as demon-possessed (John 8:48), condemned as a blasphemer. At the cross, He bore the full weight of false testimony so that slanderers and whisperers like us might be forgiven.
And when He rose, He gave us His Spirit—the Spirit of truth (John 16:13). Now, instead of wrecking balls, our words can become scaffolding that builds others up (Ephesians 4:29). Instead of tearing down names, we can crown them with honor. Instead of echoing Satan, we can echo our Savior, who even now intercedes as our Advocate (1 John 2:1).
So repent. Do not walk away as an accomplice to the Accuser. Confess the lies, the insinuations, the betrayals of silence. Make restitution. Restore the names you have chipped away.
And then, with lips set free by Christ, speak life. Defend the weak. Honor the good. Bear true witness—so that when heaven records your words, they will not sound like hell.
