For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb.
Parallel translations
- WEB For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither like the green herb.
- BSB For they wither quickly like grass and wilt like tender plants.
- NKJV For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, And wither as the green herb.
- NASB For they will wither quickly like the grass, And decay like the green plants.
- NLT For like grass, they soon fade away. Like spring flowers, they soon wither.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The reason not to envy the wicked is that they will soon be cut down and wither like grass. Their prosperity is short-lived.
Overview
David grounds his counsel against envy in the brevity of the wicked's success; like grass they quickly fade. What looks enviable today will not last. This long view, weighing eternity against the moment, frees believers from fretting and anticipates the New Testament's reminder that all flesh is grass while God's word endures forever (1 Peter 1:24-25).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 9
- Ps 92:7When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever:
- Ps 90:5–6Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.
- Jas 1:10–11But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.
- Ps 37:35–36I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree.
- Job 14:2He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.
- Job 20:5–9That the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment?
- Ps 73:17–20Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end.
- 1 Pet 1:24For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:
- Ps 129:5–7Let them all be confounded and turned back that hate Zion.
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 37:2 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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