What Does Proverbs 11:7 Mean?
When a wicked one dies, his hope perishes, and the expectation of the strong is lost.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
When a wicked man dieth, his expectation shall perish: and the hope of unjust men perisheth.THE KEY
The verse makes death reach beyond the wicked person: it takes the future their expectation was holding open.
THE MEANING
This verse places a limit on the future imagined by wickedness: when that life ends, its expectation ends with it. The parallel line says that calling something hope does not make the unjust path endure. A projected future is not proof that the way holding it will last.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that having a future in view means it will survive the person who expects it.
THE ROOT
תִּקְוָתוֹ
tiqvato
GROWS FROM
קוה
qavah
to wait for, look toward, or hope for
The word for expectation grows from the language of waiting and looking toward what is ahead. Its root shows that the expectation is an anticipated future, and the verse says that future does not outlast the life holding it open.
ALSO GROWS
qivviti: I waited; I hoped
קִוִּיתִי
This first-person form makes the root’s waiting visible: expectation is a posture toward what is still ahead.
meqavveh: one who waits or hopes
מְקַוֵּה
This form names the one looking toward what is coming, echoing the expectation that the verse says will perish.
תוֹחֶלֶת
tohelet
GROWS FROM
יחל
yachal
to wait, hope, or look for what is coming
The verse places two different Hebrew words for anticipated futures side by side: tiqvah and tohelet. English renders one as expectation and the other as hope, but both are waiting for what is ahead, and both meet the same ending here.
ALSO GROWS
yachal: to wait or hope
יָחַל
The verb exposes the waiting within the noun hope: it is an expectation turned toward what is coming.
meyachel: one who waits or hopes
מְיַחֵל
This form names the person who carries the hope, bringing the verse’s focus on the fate of the unjust person into view.
תֹּאבַד
to'vad
GROWS FROM
אבד
avad
to perish, be lost, or disappear
“perish” in this verse is to'vad. Both lines close with forms of the same root: first the expectation perishes, then the hope is lost. The repeated root binds the two anticipated futures to one outcome.
ALSO GROWS
oved: perishing, lost
אֹבֵד
This form names the condition of being lost, matching the fate shared by expectation and hope in the verse.
avadon: destruction
אֲבַדּוֹן
This noun intensifies the root’s sense of loss and shows the finality carried by the repeated verb.
THE PATTERN
An expectation has no permanence by itself: the future imagined by the wicked ends with them, while hope anchored beyond what perishes can remain steadfast.
The waiting of the aligned is gladness; the cord of the restless perishes.His breath goes out; he returns to his ground. In that very day his plans lose their way.This hope we hold as an anchor of the living soul, both unstumbling and firm, and it goes in to what lies within the curtain.THE THREAD
The waiting of the aligned is gladness; the cord of the restless perishes.This verse uses the same two Hebrew nouns for hope and expectation, but assigns them in reverse order: tohelet belongs to the righteous, and tiqvah to the wicked. In both proverbs, the wicked person’s tiqvah perishes; the contrast turns on the life carrying the expectation.
This reading is from Selah Verse.
You can read any verse this way in the app, keep it as a card, and send it on.
A Bible app where you send verses from your keyboard and in Messages, and every verse has a Deep Dive.
Does something in this reading look wrong? Tell us