The Nature and Snare of Flattery in Sacred Relations

Proverbs 29:5 warns that flattery spreads a net beneath a neighbor's feet—a trap designed by deceit. Joseph S. Exell (1887) identifies flattery's essential character: it assumes all forms and colors, a universal countenance indifferent to truth.

Flattery operates in three distinct modes. First, it conceals defects and vices, pretending blindness to faults rather than offering redemptive reproof. Those entrusted with governance, guidance, and friendship bear the sacred duty to reprove—yet only in secret, with meekness, respect for station, and without arrogance. Reproof must cease once amendment occurs.

Second, flattery actively defends and praises vice itself. The gravest offenders are those claiming enthusiasmos (divine inspiration) who assure the powerful that transgressions forbidden to common men are lawful for them—and casuists who gild villainies with virtue's name. Human nature opens readily to such sophistry; consciences desperately seek relief from guilt through such poisoned comfort.

Third, flattery imitates another's vices through word and action—a prostitution of tongue and judgment whereby the flatterer mirrors what others commend, adopting absurd gestures to please. These are not innocent accommodations but calculated entrapments.

The net spreads beneath the feet of those who receive such poisoned praise. Wisdom demands vigilance against both the flatterer's tongue and our own susceptibility to it.