What Does Psalm 37:20 Mean?
But the wicked will lose the way, and the enemies of the LORD will be like the weight of the pastures. They will run out, and in smoke they will run out.
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 perish, and the enemies of the LORD shall be as the fat of lambs: they shall consume; into smoke shall they consume away.THE KEY
The verse makes opposition look rich only to show that it cannot keep its shape: it ends as smoke.
THE MEANING
The LORD’s enemies have no permanence: what looks rich and substantial is already passing into smoke. This verse meets the reader wherever hostility seems immovable, naming its horizon as disappearance. The end is consumption and smoke.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The belief that opposition to the LORD is permanent or ultimate dissolves here; the verse names its end as disappearance.
THE ROOT
יֹאבֵדוּ
yōʾvēdū
GROWS FROM
אבד
ʾ-b-d
To be lost, perish, or disappear.
“lose the way” in this verse is yōʾvēdū. This root holds both perishing and being lost, a connection that the English word can hide. The smoke completes the picture: the enemies do not simply lose a contest; they vanish from view.
ALSO GROWS
ʾābad: To perish or be lost.
אָבַד
It is the verb behind the verse’s opening word, linking the enemies’ end with loss.
ʾăvaddōn: Destruction or ruin.
אֲבַדּוֹן
This noun from the same root gives the idea of being lost a fuller sense of ruin.
כָּלוּ
kālū
GROWS FROM
כלה
k-l-h
To come to an end, be finished, or be consumed.
“run out” in this verse is kālū. The verse repeats the same Hebrew verb twice: first “they shall consume,” then “into smoke shall they consume away.” The repetition holds the image on one ending, their being finished, while the smoke makes that ending visible.
ALSO GROWS
kālāh: To come to an end or be complete.
כָּלָה
This form shows how the root’s sense of completion can also mean reaching an end.
killāh: To bring to an end, finish, or consume.
כִּלָּה
This form carries the root’s ending into an action that finishes or consumes something.
יְקַר
yĕqār
GROWS FROM
יקר
y-q-r
To be precious, costly, or highly valued.
“weight” in this verse is yĕqār. The Hebrew word rendered “fat” also carries a sense of value and splendor. The image holds both material richness and what appears precious, then shows it passing into smoke.
ALSO GROWS
yāqār: Precious, costly, or rare.
יָקָר
This related form gives the image of the lambs a sense of value as well as fullness.
yĕqār: Worth, honor, or splendor.
יְקָר
This noun’s sense of splendor deepens the image of something that looks substantial yet vanishes.
THE PATTERN
What appears lasting can disappear: Scripture pictures the wicked and even the visible world vanishing like smoke, and human life as vapor.
For the LORD perceives the way of the aligned, but the way of the wicked loses its way.Lift your eyes to the heavens, and look to the earth below. For the heavens will melt away like smoke, and the earth will wear out like a garment, and those who dwell in it will die the same way. But my deliverance will be for the ages, and my alignment will not be cut off.You do not know what tomorrow holds. For what is your life? You are a mist, showing itself for a little while, and then made unseen.THE THREAD
As smoke is driven away, so drive them away; as wax melts before the fire, so let the wicked lose their way before God.Both verses use the Hebrew root אבד (ʾābad, “perish” or “be lost”). Psalm 68:2 adds smoke and melting wax, making the vanishing in Psalm 37:20 visible.
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