Language Studies

Hebrew Thoughts

râsh‘â - רשע (Strong's #7563)
Wicked

רשע râsh①(Strong's #7563) "wicked" or criminal or guilty, often in opposition to God. This word occurs 263 times most frequently in the Psalms (82x), Proverbs (78x), Ezekiel (28x) and Job (26x). It is used in parallel with almost every Hebrew word for sin, evil, and iniquity. It describes the person more as an adjective whilst the noun רשע resha‘ (Strong's #7562) describes the wicked or criminal act itself, "wickedness proceeds from the wicked" (1 Samuel 24:13).

Its use is most clearly seen in its being opposed to righteousness. The contrast with righteous/righteousness is most common in the book of Proverbs where over half of the 80 occasions in which the words are used together in contrasting parallelism occur. The first time we find the word in the Bible is in Genesis 18:23 in Abraham's dialogue with God over the innocent in Sodom, "...would You also destroy the righteous צדּיק tsaddîyq, Strong's #6662) with the wicked?" (cf. v25). Pharaoh contrasts his own wickedness with God's righteousness (Exodus 9:27).

The phrase has legal overtones and is again found contrasted with the righteous in Deuteronomy 25:1-2 where the judges "justify the righteous and condemn the wicked" (phraseology found again in Solomon's prayer, 1 Kings 8:32). God himself says that he will not "justify the wicked" (Exodus 23:7). The English in both these verses masks the underlying Hebrew which uses the hiphil causative form of the root verbs of each adjectival noun, in other words, the language is actually "declare-as-righteous צדק tsadhaq, Strong's #6663) the righteous and condemn/reveal-as-wicked רשע râsha‘, Strong's #7561) the wicked". So it is technically impossible to "declare-as-righteous" the wicked as the verb is not related to the noun. This makes the Christian salvation theology all the more remarkable as God does the impossible in making the wicked righteous.

Continuing the legal context we find in Numbers 35:31, "you shall take no ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death, but he shall surely be put to death" it seems best to translate as "guilty" but it could equally be "wicked to the death" or "rotten to the core", as the preposition translated "of" is actually "to the" in Hebrew.

Returning to the root verb Gesenius sees רשע râsha‘ as related to רעע râ‘a‘ (Strong's #7489) and רעש râ‘ash (Strong's #7493) the former of which he regards as the root of רע ra‘ "evil" (Strong's #7451), though it may be that רע ra‘ is a primitive bi-consonantal word extended by doubling the second consonant to make רעע râ‘a‘. רעע râ‘a‘ means "to make a loud noise", often as in "breaking or crushing", as does רעש râ‘ash more along the lines of shaking and trembling like that caused by an earthquake. With the addition of the letter signifying water מ mem to רע r-‘ we get the root verb רעם râ‘am (Strong's #7481) to "rage or roar" as the sea below or clouds above creating thunder.

All the above roots point to the idea of noise and tempest, of a disturbance in nature, exemplified by roaring waves, crashing thunder or ground-breaking earthquakes. A trifle melodramatic but this is the picture of the wicked. Job 3:17 describes the rest, albeit through death, of the wicked where they "cease from troubling" using the word רגז rôghez "rage" (Strong's #7267). Verbs beginning רג are often similar to those above with רע r-‘ signifying "rage" or "noise" (e.g., Strong's #7264, #7279, #7280, #7283).

Again in Job 34:29 we find that when God gives "quiet" and rest "who can trouble" using רשע râsha‘ which is translated as "condemn" by some. The state of the righteous is quiet and rest, that of the wicked is noise, tumult and tossing. Isaiah 57:20 appropriately describes the wicked as "like the tossing troubled sea, which cannot rest, whose waves cast up mire and mud" using a verb גּרש gârash (Strong's #1644) which means to be "driven or thrust out", even of "divorce" in the sense of "expelled" (Leviticus 21:7). In the beautiful word picture of Psalm 1:4-6 the wicked (used 4 times in its 6 verses) are compared to the chaff that is driven away by the wind, they are those that are unable to stand with the righteous.

"Oh, the raging of many nations - they rage like the raging sea! Oh, the uproar of the peoples - they roar like the roaring of great waters! Although the peoples roar like the roar of surging waters, when he rebukes them they flee far away, driven before the wind like chaff on the hills, like tumble-weed before a gale." (Isaiah 17:12-13)

Whilst the occasional and accidental sinner can easily be restored before God the wicked man is more intent upon his way and resolute in his wicked path. Psalm 119:155 says that "salvation is far from the wicked because they do not seek God's statutes". Nonetheless, God still opens a door to the wicked if they repent they "shall surely live" for God has no pleasure or delight in their death, they bring their own death upon themselves (Ezekiel 18:20-23) although the guilt for their death can rather extremely be put at the door of the righteous if he does not warn the wicked concerning his acts and fate (Ezekiel 33:8-9).

Job (12:6; 21:7), David (Psalm 73:3), Solomon (Ecclesiastes 7:15), Jeremiah (12:1), Habakkuk (1:4,13) and Malachi (3:15) all wondered why the way of the wicked prospered. In God's time (Ecclesiastes 3:17), though, the whirlwind will come upon the wicked (Jeremiah 23:19; 30:23) and in their death they will find banishment (Proverbs 14:32) whilst the righteous will find the rest that the raging soul of the wicked will never find.

"There is no peace, Says my God, for the wicked" (Isaiah 57:21)

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