Lies translates a word which means something worthless, fraudulent, fictitious, untrue.

To his neighbor is a way of saying “to one another,” “to everyone.” It is important in translation to avoid the term for neighbor which simply means the person who lives nearby. It is necessary to express the idea of reciprocity in lying, “lie to one another,” as in Good News Translation.

Verse 2 is characteristic of parallel lines in that the second line repeats the idea of the first, but does so in idiomatic language. If the receptor language uses or accommodates naturally this type of “going beyond” in the second line, the translator should use it. The Hebrew metaphor may be inappropriate, and hence different ones will have to be used. When switching to nonfigures or to different figures, the translator must consider the implication for the whole of the psalm, because the same words may occur again, as lips will be repeated in verses 3-4. For translation suggestions on “flatter” see 5.4. Deceit is sometimes rendered “with two mouths,” “with two livers,” or “with the heart going on two paths.”

With flattering lips is literally “lips of smoothness”; the noun “smoothness” is related to the verb for “flatter” found in 5.9 (which is similar in thought to this verse). The Hebrew expression translated a double heart is literally “a heart and a heart”; it portrays the idea of deceit, double-dealing, “a forked tongue.” New Jerusalem Bible has “duplicity”; or it may be “dishonest motives.”

In line b lips and heart may be contrasted, as Bible en français courant does: “their lips flatter, but their heart deceives.”

Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Reyburn, William D. A Handbook on the Book of Psalms. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1991. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .