"But the wicked will be cut off from the land and the treacherous will be uprooted from it"
Solomon reminds his young trainees that there will be a day of reckoning. It just seems like the shortcuts that the wicked are taking are working. It is easy to get caught in a period where it looks like the bad guys are winning. The wicked people who cheat, lie, steal, gain by violence, are unfaithful, and even perverted seem to be getting ahead through their ways of living. Solomon is trying to remind us that over the course of a life, that form of living will be rejected. It will catch up with a person – even though for a small window or period it looks like there is no God and that there is no justice.
It is important to remind ourselves of these facts. One cannot go on being wicked with no consequences. Also there will be a judgment day when God will weigh the thoughts, actions, and speech of every person.
cut off from the land
This is the worst Hebrew punishment because the land of Israel was the holy land. It was so much a part of the economy and what God was doing for the nation. This was also a way of saying exile or death is the fate of the wicked.
What is interesting is that Solomon does not say how the wicked will be cut off from the land. He could mean that God will make sure that punishment takes place; he could mean that society will deal with this type of individual; he could mean that other individuals or groups that have been cheated or defrauded will bring about exile or death. Solomon does not say. But he wants us to know that the techniques of the wicked for getting what they want will not remain for the long haul.
We are reminded in history that even tyrants do not rule forever. They will be cut down.
wicked
This is the Hebrew word resa, which means wrong, wicked, guilty. In the Old Testament it is equivalent to someone who regularly practices actions that are beyond the boundaries of the Ten Commandments. This person has decided what they want is more important than any boundaries that God or society might put in place.
treacherous
This is the Hebrew word bagad, which means treacherous, deceitful, unfaithful to a deal. There is a fraud component to this idea. One is made to believe one thing while something else entirely is going on. You have been swindled. You have lost and the other person has gained at your expense. This is one of the key ideas in unethical and illegal behavior. If you do this to enough people, then you will get yours. What you think you have will be taken from you.
uprooted from it
Clearly this is intended to convey that the person does not live out the normal, natural course of life with the pleasant death at the end.
We, as a nation, are just entering into a period where the price of all the injustice is about to be enacted. The party for those who cheat, lie, and steal is over and the consequences have begun to come home. Many people who pretended that there was no God and lived like no one would hold them to account will lose everything in this whirlwind that is now upon us. This is now the time when Jesus said that the house built upon the rock (God and His principles) will weather the storm and those that are built upon the sand (the theories of the day) will be swept away.
Until tomorrow,
Gil Stieglitz