At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16: 11)
Whose hatred is covered by deceit, his wickedness shall be shewed before the whole congregation (KJV).
Though his hatred is covered by deceit, his wickedness will be revealed before the assembly (NKJV).
Proverbs 26:26
Those who are guilty of sin will always want to hide the fact. This has been the case since our first parents heard the voice of Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day (Gen. 3:8), and they immediately took it upon themselves to hide. That was not exactly the smoothest of moves—“Quick! The omniscient one is coming. Let’s hide behind this bush.”
But even though our natural impulse is to hide sin, the Scriptures also teach us that some sins are more angular than others, and so parts of them stick out from their hiding places. Some sins are obvious, in other words, and some are not. “Some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment; and some men they follow after” (1 Timothy 5:24). And in other cases, the sin appears to cooperate with being hidden, but then later, at an inopportune time, tumbles out in front of everybody. This is the kind of thing that this particular proverb is talking about. Just like two chemicals might be volatile when mixed together, so also it is with hatred and deception (about the hatred). If a man carries hatred in his heart toward someone, it is like magma in a volcano, the kind near the top, the kind that wants to come out. You can’t fix that kind of thing by putting a tarp over the top of the volcano.
Moses told the people that their sin would find them out (Num. 32:23). This is true for all sin, in some way, shape or form, but certain sins give themselves away far more readily. You don’t have to go far to find people denying that they are bitter, or malicious, or spiteful, or envious, when that is the most obvious thing about them.
What this proverb promises us is that when people deceive themselves in this way, and seek to cover over their hatred with fair words, the truth is going to become obvious to the whole assembly. The truth will out.
