In light of the Bible’s complex attitude to falsehood—outright condemnation, on the one hand, versus recognition of its legitimacy and its occasional necessity, on the other—my aim in this article is to examine how the Bible pictures falsehoods uttered by those figures whom one would least expect to lie, namely, the prophets. I will attempt to show that in all instances of prophets telling lies the biblical narrator is at pains to put a better face on the action. Formally speaking, the prophet cannot be accused of lying, although he has consciously and deliberately misled his interlocutor. The technique of deception involves half-truths and concealment of relevant information, or ambiguity. It will also be shown that this technique, though most characteristic of prophets, is also used on occasion by other positive human figures, and even more so by God.