Proverbs 10:6

violence covereth&c. This, which is the rendering both of A.V. and R.V. text, is to be preferred to the rendering of R.V. marg., "the mouth of the wicked covereth violence," i.e. in what he says there is a covert purpose of violence, which he endeavours to conceal.

So rendered it may mean either (a) the violence of the wicked man himself covers his mouth he never opens it without pouring forth violence; and then perhaps we are to complete the parallelism by supplying from the first clause, "you may judge therefore what comes upon his head"; or (b) in more obvious parallelism, instead of the blessings which all men pour upon the head of the just, the mouth of the wicked they cover with violence, with reproaches, and it may be with blows (Acts 23:2). To this, however, it is objected that the Heb. word always connotes wrongfultreatment.

The idea of covering the mouth as a sign of condemnation is farfetched, and it is not borne out by the passages cited in support of it (Esther 7:8; Leviticus 13:45; Ezekiel 24:17; Micah 3:7), in all of which it is the "lip" or the "face," and not the "mouth" which is covered.