What Does Psalm 112:10 Mean?
The wicked see it and are provoked; they grind their teeth and melt away; the craving of the wicked perishes.
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
The wicked shall see it, and be grieved; he shall gnash with his teeth, and melt away: the desire of the wicked shall perish.THE KEY
The verse makes desire itself the thing that perishes: what wickedness grasps for does not outlast it.
THE MEANING
When the wicked see the righteous person’s honor, grief and anger rise; their teeth grind, and they themselves melt away. The desire they carry does not endure, it perishes.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that craving can secure a lasting outcome: here the wicked person’s own desire is the thing that perishes.
THE ROOT
תֹּאבֵד
to'ved
GROWS FROM
אבד
To be lost, perish, or disappear.
“perishes” in this verse is to'ved. The craving itself is the subject of “perish.” The root makes the ending sharper: what seems to drive the wicked person is itself lost.
ALSO GROWS
avad: To perish or be lost.
אָבַד
This verb names the disappearance that the verse assigns to the wicked person’s desire.
avaddon: Destruction or ruin.
אֲבַדּוֹן
This noun shows how the same root can name the destination as destruction.
תַּאֲוַת
ta'avath
GROWS FROM
אוה
To desire or long for.
The word carries the shade of craving, not merely a neutral preference. Set beside אבד, “to be lost,” it shows that this longing has no enduring life of its own.
ALSO GROWS
avah: To desire or long for.
אָוָה
The verb makes the reaching quality of this desire visible.
ta'avah: Longing, desire, or craving.
תַּאֲוָה
This noun is the word family behind the desire that the verse says will perish.
THE PATTERN
Desire severed from what endures carries its own disappearance within it.
The wicked see it and are provoked; they grind their teeth and melt away; the craving of the wicked perishes.The waiting of the aligned is gladness; the cord of the restless perishes.And the world is passing away, and its craving with it, but the one who does the will of God remains for the ages.THE THREAD
For the LORD perceives the way of the aligned, but the way of the wicked loses its way.Psalm 1:6 uses the same Hebrew root, אבד, for the way of the ungodly: it perishes. Psalm 112:10 tightens the image, the wicked person’s desire is not merely frustrated along the way; that desire itself is lost.
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