What Does Psalm 92:7 Mean in the King James?
When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever:
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 wicked’s bloom is not the opposite of their ending: the verse holds their rise and their everlasting destruction together.
THE MEANING
You can see people bent on harm rise quickly and visibly, seeming to thrive. The verse calls that rise a bloom like grass, then declares their end without softening it: they are destroyed for ever.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
Visible success does not prove lasting strength or safety from judgment; the verse undoes the belief that whatever flourishes now must endure.
THE ROOT
וַיָּצִיצוּ
wayyāṣîṣû
GROWS FROM
צוץ
to blossom, to put forth a flower
“do flourish” in this verse is wayyāṣîṣû. The word for flourishing carries the image of a blossom: the wicked really do rise into view, but their rise is flower-like, not proof of permanence. English “flourish” can sound like durable success; the root keeps the brief, exposed bloom inside the picture.
ALSO GROWS
flower: A blossom; a visible but vulnerable growth.
The same word family can name the flower itself, keeping the verse’s flourishing tied to a season of bloom.
blossom: To open into bloom; to flourish.
Psalm 103:15 uses this blossom language for human flourishing, showing that a rise can be real and still pass.
פֹּעֲלֵי אָוֶן
poʿălê ʾāven
GROWS FROM
און
trouble, harm, emptiness, or vanity
“workers of iniquity” in this verse is poʿălê ʾāven. The verse describes these people by the work they do: their activity is trouble, and the word can also carry the sense of emptiness. Their visible bloom therefore does not make their work substantial; the verse holds outward thriving beside an inwardly hollow and harmful labor.
ALSO GROWS
trouble: Harm or distress produced by an action.
This sense keeps “workers” concrete: the verse names a pattern of harmful work, not merely a label for a person.
vanity: Emptiness or futility.
This shade deepens the contrast between their flourishing appearance and the emptiness of what they produce.
THE PATTERN
Scripture treats visible flourishing as a season, not proof of lasting substance.
As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:THE THREAD
As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.Psalm 103:15 uses the same blossom word family for human flourishing: a person can bloom like a field flower and still be short-lived. Psalm 92:7 sharpens the image by naming the wicked’s final end as destruction for ever.
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