What Does Proverbs 2:22 Mean?
But the wicked are cut off from the earth, and the treacherous are uprooted from it.
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
But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.THE KEY
The verb for being “cut off” also appears in the Hebrew idiom “cut a covenant,” making loss of land feel like a severed bond with belonging.
THE MEANING
The verse presents the earth as a place where wrongdoing does not hold a permanent claim: the wicked are cut away, and those who betray are torn from it. The second image makes that loss physical, as though the ground itself no longer holds them. Its claim reaches the reader now: treachery cannot become lasting belonging.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that betrayal can secure a permanent foothold: this verse pictures the treacherous being torn from the land itself.
THE ROOT
יִכָּרֵתוּ
yikkaretu
GROWS FROM
כרת
karat
To cut, hew, or sever.
“cut off” in this verse is yikkaretu. This is the same verb used in the Hebrew idiom “cut a covenant,” where cutting marks a bond. Here it marks severance from the earth, giving the loss of place a relational edge as well as a physical one.
ALSO GROWS
karat: To cut or hew.
כָּרַת
This is the root verb behind “cut off,” making the verse’s image of separation concrete.
karat berit: To cut a covenant; the Hebrew idiom for making a covenant.
כָּרַת בְּרִית
The same verb that can mark a binding relationship here marks a severing from the land.
יִסָּחוּ
yissachu
GROWS FROM
נסח
nasach
To tear away, pluck up, or remove.
“uprooted” in this verse is yissachu. The verse moves from cutting to pulling away: nasach pictures what is held in place being torn out. Proverbs uses the same root for the LORD plucking up a proud house, extending the image from a person’s place in the land to a household’s place.
ALSO GROWS
yissachu: They will be torn away or plucked out.
יִסָּחוּ
This form gives the verse’s second image its force: the treacherous are pulled from their place.
yissach: Will pluck up; used of the proud person’s house in Proverbs 15:25.
יִסַּח
The same root can describe a household being uprooted, showing how removal reaches beyond the individual.
בֹּגְדִים
bogedim
GROWS FROM
בגד
bagad
To act treacherously or betray trust.
“treacherous” in this verse is bogedim. The Hebrew word carries the texture of betrayal: these are people who deal treacherously. Paired with the image of being pulled from the land, the verse links betrayal with losing one’s place.
ALSO GROWS
bagad: To act treacherously or betray.
בָּגַד
The verb names the action beneath the people described here.
boged: A treacherous person or betrayer.
בֹּגֵד
The plural bogedim in the verse names those marked by this action.
THE PATTERN
What is rooted in treachery loses its place, while the land remains an inheritance for those who wait upon the LORD.
For the evildoers will be cut off, and those stretched toward the LORD will inherit the land.Let those who miss the mark be used up from the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless the LORD, O my living soul. Praise the LORD.And already the axe lies at the root of the trees, so every tree that does not make good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.THE THREAD
For the evildoers will be cut off, and those stretched toward the LORD will inherit the land.Psalm 37:9 uses the same Hebrew root כרת (karat), “to cut,” for evildoers being cut off. It also makes explicit the other side of Proverbs’ contrast: those who wait upon the LORD inherit the earth.
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