John Calvin Commentary Leviticus 19:16

"Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people: neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbor: I am Jehovah." — Leviticus 19:16 (ASV)

You shall not go up and down. The principle of this second clause is the same as that of the preceding verse, for it is added to a general precept by which detraction is condemned. We ought to be much more deterred from it, while we acknowledge that our tongue is thus armed cruelly to shed innocent blood.

Some suppose that the word רכיל, racil, is metaphorically taken from merchants, because the tale-bearer or whisperer ¹⁶⁹ is no less busy hunting for false reports, which he may afterwards circulate, than the merchant is diligently bent on buying and selling.

Others think that there is a change of the letter ג into כ, and that the word is thus derived from the feet. This is because calumniators are always wandering about to hunt for grounds of detraction, and therefore the word is always joined with a verb that signifies “to walk.”

However, I do not think that it is always used in the same sense. For when Ezekiel reproves the Israelites because there were always men called רכיל, racil, among them to shed blood, ¹⁷⁰ I understand this to mean men of fraud, or fraudulent persons, who plot against the good to procure their destruction (Ezekiel 22:9). Some also translate it as “spies.”

Meanwhile, I do not doubt that Moses, in this passage, designates those vagabonds who too eagerly run about here and there and, in their malignant inquisitiveness, penetrate into everyone’s secrets to bring quiet people into trouble.

In short, we are taught that whoever, by the virulence of their tongue, brings their brothers into danger and inconvenience is accounted a false witness before God.

¹⁶⁹ “Delator aut susurro.” — Lat. “The original properly signifies a trader, a pedlar, and is here applied to one who travels up and down dealing in slanders and detractions, as a merchant does in wares, possessing himself of the secrets of individuals and families, and then blazing them abroad, usually with a false colouring as to motives and a distortion of facts.” — Bush. “Some explain רכיל as if רגיל, (the ג being changed into כ,) from רגל, to run about, to explore.” — Fagius, from the Hebrew Commentators, in Poole’s Synopsis. “Non reperimus in S. Scriptura dictionem רכילות, quae non sit scripta lingua הליכה, i e., ambulationis.” — Sal. Jarchi in loco. See C. on Jeremiah 9:4, Cal. Soc. edit., vol. 1, p. 464

¹⁷⁰ “In thee are men that carry tales (margin, men of slanders) to shed blood.” — , men of slanders) to shed blood.” — A..V..