What Does Psalm 37:38 Mean in the King James?
But the transgressors shall be destroyed together: the end of the wicked shall be cut off.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse names rebellion’s promised escape as a severed future: what breaks away does not become free of consequence.
THE MEANING
The verse speaks to the reader now: those who make rebellion their way are destroyed together, and the wicked’s end is cut off. This is not a temporary setback; the line describes a decisive severance.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that breaking away can secure lasting freedom: the future that path promises is cut off.
THE ROOT
נִכְרָתָה
nikhretah
GROWS FROM
כרת
to cut, sever, or cut off
The word behind “cut off” is built on כרת (karat), the verb also used for “cut a covenant.” Hebrew’s wording lets one root hold both binding and severance; here the wicked’s end is described as a decisive separation, not merely a fading.
ALSO GROWS
karat berit: to cut a covenant; idiomatically, to make a covenant
כָּרַת בְּרִית
Genesis 15:18 uses this verb for covenant-making, showing that the same root can mark a bond being established.
sefer keritut: a bill of divorce, a document of severance
סֵפֶר כְּרִיתוּת
This branch makes the root’s separation sense explicit and illuminates the force of the end being cut off.
פֹּשְׁעִים
poshe’im
GROWS FROM
פשע
to rebel, break away
“transgressors” in this verse is poshe’im. The word carries the sense of rebellion, a breaking away. The verse presents that break as a path whose destination is itself severance.
ALSO GROWS
pesha: rebellion, breaking away
פֶּשַׁע
This noun names the rupture beneath the people described as transgressors.
pasha: to rebel, break away
פָּשַׁע
The verb makes the action vivid: the verse speaks of people whose way is defined by breaking away.
אַחֲרִית
aḥarit
GROWS FROM
אחר
after, behind
The Hebrew word for “end” carries the sense of what comes after. The verse points from a present way to its outcome: what follows that way is cut off.
ALSO GROWS
aḥar: after, behind
אַחַר
This basic sense gives “end” the feel of what comes afterward.
aḥaron: last, latter
אַחֲרוֹן
This related form also locates something at the far end of what comes after.
THE PATTERN
The way of rebellion does not secure a lasting future; its endpoint is named as perishing, death, or destruction.
For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:THE THREAD
In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates:Genesis 15:18 uses כרת (karat, cut) in the phrase translated “made a covenant”; Psalm 37:38 uses the same root for “cut off.” The echo makes the ending more than a generic finish: it carries the force of a decisive severance.
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