Wicked (People)
Scripture knows the wicked primarily as a class of person — the rasha — set against the righteous at almost every level. The umbrella gathers a family of vocabulary: wicked, ungodly, sinner, evildoer, worker of iniquity, transgressor, godless. The figure has a name in every era: Cain at the door of his anger, the men of Sodom, the antediluvian generation, Ahab the husband of Jezebel, Manasseh whose blood filled Jerusalem, the wicked man of Psalm 1 and Psalm 73, the fool of Proverbs and Sirach, Antiochus and the Hellenizers of 1 Maccabees, the children of the devil in John, the ungodly of Jude. Across all these the rows trace a consistent pattern — counsel that hardens, a path that twists, prosperity that does not last, and an end Yahweh has appointed.
Cain, Sodom, and the Antediluvian Earth
The first wicked man named in the canon is Cain, and his wickedness is described as a thing crouching at his door. Yahweh warns him directly: "If you do well, will it not be lifted up? And if you do not well, sin is crouching at the door: and to you will be its desire, but you will rule over it" (Gen 4:7). He does not rule over it. "And Cain told Abel his brother. And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him" (Gen 4:8). The interrogation that follows is the canon's first record of the wicked man's evasion: "And [the Speech of] Yahweh said to Cain, Where is Abel your brother? And he said, I don't know: am I my brother's keeper?" (Gen 4:9). The sentence drives him out: "And Cain went out from the presence of Yahweh, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden" (Gen 4:16). 1 John reads the killing as a portrait of the type — "not as Cain [who] was of the evil one, and slew his brother. And why did he slay him? Because his works were evil, and his brother's righteous" (1 John 3:12) — and Jude makes the way of Cain a category for the apostate teachers: "Woe to them! For they went in the way of Cain, and ran riotously in the error of Balaam for wages, and perished in the opposing of Korah" (Jude 1:11). Hebrews preserves the contrast — "By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he had witness borne to him that he was righteous" (Heb 11:4).
The flood narrative pictures wickedness as a state of the whole earth. "And Yahweh saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Gen 6:5). The corruption is total — "And the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth, and, look, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth" (Gen 6:11-12) — and Yahweh's verdict is total: "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the ground" (Gen 6:7). Peter looks back at the same generation — Yahweh "did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when he brought a flood on the world of the ungodly" (2 Pet 2:5).
Sodom is the next archetype. "Now the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners against Yahweh exceedingly" (Gen 13:13); "And Yahweh said, Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous" (Gen 18:20). The judgment is fire: "Then [the Speech of] Yahweh rained on Sodom and on Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Yahweh out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew on the ground" (Gen 19:24-25). Luke uses it as an image of sudden and total destruction — "in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all" (Luke 17:29). The prophets keep the city alive as a name for Israel's own sin: "Except Yahweh of hosts had left to us a very small remnant, we should have been as Sodom, we should have been like Gomorrah" (Isa 1:9); "The expression of their face witnesses against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they do not hide it. Woe to their soul! For they have done evil to themselves" (Isa 3:9); "For the iniquity of the daughter of my people is greater than the sin of Sodom, That was overthrown as in a moment, and no hands were laid on her" (Lam 4:6); "For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, And of the fields of Gomorrah: Their grapes are grapes of gall, Their clusters are bitter" (Deut 32:32). Sirach lists the place in the same series of unspared communities: "And he did not spare the place where Lot sojourned; Those who were furious in their pride" (Sir 16:8). Revelation closes the cycle by giving the great city the name spiritually: "their dead bodies [lie] in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified" (Rev 11:8).
Israel's Wicked Kings: Ahab and Manasseh
The Kings narrative produces a recurrent formulary verdict — "he did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh" — laid on king after king of Israel and Judah. It is the verdict on Rehoboam's Judah: "And Judah did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they committed, above all that their fathers had done" (1 Kings 14:22). It is the verdict on Nadab — "And he did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and walked in the way of his father, and in his sin with which he made Israel to sin" (1 Kings 15:26) — and on Baasha (1 Kings 16:7), Ahaziah (2 Kings 8:27), Jehoahaz (2 Kings 13:2), Jeroboam II (2 Kings 14:24), and a long line of northern kings whose reigns the historian compresses into the formula: "And he did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, as his fathers had done: he did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat" (2 Kings 15:9-28). Hoshea is judged less harshly but not exempted (2 Kings 17:2); Jehoiakim and Jehoiachin both receive the same line (2 Kings 23:32; 2 Kings 24:9). Judges runs the same cycle in the prior age — "And the sons of Israel did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, and served the Baalim" (Judg 2:11); the formula recurs at Judg 3:7, 4:1, 6:1, 10:6, 13:1, marking the cyclic relapse of the nation into wickedness.
Ahab is given the formula intensified beyond all of his predecessors. "And in the thirty and eighth year of Asa king of Judah, Ahab the son of Omri began to reign over Israel: and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty and two years. And Ahab the son of Omri did that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh above all who were before him. And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he took as wife Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went and served Baal, and worshiped him. And he reared up an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he had built in Samaria. And Ahab made the Asherah; and Ahab did yet more to provoke Yahweh, the God of Israel, to anger than all the kings of Israel who were before him" (1 Kings 16:29-33). The narrator's later parenthesis fixes the verdict: "(But there was none like Ahab, who sold himself to do that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up." (1 Kings 21:25). His house is destroyed in fulfillment of the prophecy — "Now Ahab had seventy sons in Samaria. And Jehu wrote letters to the rulers of Samaria, to the elders of Jezreel, and to the tutors [appointed by] Ahab... Now know that nothing will fall to the earth of the word of Yahweh, which Yahweh spoke concerning the house of Ahab: for Yahweh has done that which he spoke by his slave Elijah" (2 Kings 10:1-10) — and the sentence on his house becomes the template for sentences on later wicked dynasties: "I will make your house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah for the provocation with which you have provoked me to anger, and have made Israel to sin" (1 Kings 21:22).
Manasseh is the southern parallel. The reign-summary in 2 Kings 21 frames him as the king whose wickedness exceeded the original Canaanites: "Manasseh seduced them to do that which is evil more than did the nations whom Yahweh destroyed before the sons of Israel... Moreover Manasseh shed very much innocent blood, until he had filled Jerusalem from one end to another; besides his sin with which he made Judah to sin, in doing that which was evil in the sight of Yahweh" (2 Kings 21:1-16). Yahweh's verdict on him explicitly invokes Ahab as the metric: "Because Manasseh king of Judah has done these disgusting things, and has done wickedly above all that the Amorites did, who were before him, and has made Judah also to sin with his idols; therefore this is what Yahweh, the God of Israel, says, Look, I bring such evil on Jerusalem and Judah, that whoever hears of it, both his ears will tingle. And I will stretch over Jerusalem the line of Samaria, and the plummet of the house of Ahab; and I will wipe Jerusalem as a man wipes a dish, wiping it and turning it upside down" (2 Kings 21:11-13). His exile and his end are recorded in 2 Chronicles: "Therefore Yahweh brought on them the captains of the host of the king of Assyria, who took Manasseh in chains, and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon... So Manasseh slept with his fathers, and they buried him in his own house: and Amon his son reigned in his stead" (2 Chr 33:11-20). The historian later names him as the cause of the captivity: "Surely according to the mouth of Yahweh this came upon Judah, to remove them out of his sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did" (2 Kings 24:3). Eli's house gives the prior pattern of an unrestrained wicked house under judgment — "I will judge his house forever, for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons cursed God, and he did not restrain them" (1 Sam 3:13) — and Hosea's sentence on the northern kingdom turns the same idiom into a finished verdict: "Ephraim is joined to idols; leave him alone" (Hos 4:17).
The Wicked Man of Psalms, Proverbs, and Job
In the Psalter and the wisdom books the wicked person becomes a portrait. Psalm 1 fixes the contrast at the head of the Psalter: "Not so are the wicked: but rather they are like chaff, which is blown away by the wind. Therefore, the wicked will not stand in the judgment; nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For Yahweh knows the way of the righteous; But the way of the wicked, will perish" (Ps 1:4-6). The wicked man's interior is interrogated again and again: "For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; Their inward part is much wickedness; Their throat is an open tomb; They flatter with their tongue" (Ps 5:9). His weaponry is speech: "Who have whet their tongue like a sword, And have aimed their arrows, even bitter words" (Ps 64:3). His character is named directly: "You love evil more than good, And lying rather than to speak righteousness. Selah" (Ps 52:3). His attempt on the just: "The wicked plots against the just, And gnashes on him with his teeth" (Ps 37:12). His relation to Yahweh: "Yahweh tries the righteous; But the wicked and him who loves violence his soul hates" (Ps 11:5). The closing line of Psalm 112 repeats the figure as one undone by the sight of the upright: "The wicked will see it, and be grieved; He will gnash with his teeth, and melt away: The desire of the wicked will perish" (Ps 112:10).
The prosperity of the wicked is a recurrent puzzle. Asaph names it directly: "For I was envious at the arrogant, When I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no pangs in their death; But their strength is firm. They are not in trouble as common man; Neither are they plagued like man. Therefore pride is as a chain about their neck; Violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes stand out with fatness: They have more than heart could wish. They scoff, and in wickedness utter oppression: They speak loftily. They have set their mouth in the heavens, And their tongue walks through the earth... And they say, How does God know? And is there knowledge in the Most High? Look, these are the wicked; And, being always at ease, they increase in riches" (Ps 73:3-12). The resolution comes only inside the sanctuary: "Until I went into the sanctuary of God, And considered their latter end" (Ps 73:17). Job sees the same picture: "Why do the wicked live, Become old, yes, wax mighty in power? Their seed is established with them in their sight, And their offspring before their eyes. Their houses are safe from fear, Neither is the rod of God on them... They spend their days in prosperity, And in a moment they go down to Sheol" (Job 21:7-13). The end is the closing word in both books — "That they are as stubble before the wind, And as chaff that the storm carries away" (Job 21:18); "When the wicked spring as the grass, And when all the workers of iniquity flourish; It is that they will be destroyed forever" (Ps 92:7).
The portion of the wicked man is fixed: "On the wicked he will rain snares; Fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup" (Ps 11:6); "For in the hand of Yahweh there is a cup, and the wine foams; It is an undiluted mixture, and he pours out of the same: Surely its dregs, all the wicked of the earth will drain them, and drink them" (Ps 75:8); "All the horns of the wicked also I will cut off; But the horns of the righteous will be lifted up" (Ps 75:10). Job's friends repeat the verdict in the wisdom idiom — "This is the portion of [the] wicked man from God, And the heritage appointed to him by God" (Job 20:29); "This is the portion of [the] wicked man with God, And the heritage of oppressors, which they receive from the Almighty" (Job 27:13). The cutting-off is named outright: "For evildoers will be cut off; But those who wait for [the Speech of] Yahweh, they will inherit the land" (Ps 37:9); "For yet a little while, and the wicked will not be: Yes, you will diligently consider his place, and he will not be" (Ps 37:10); "As for transgressors, they will be destroyed together; The end of the wicked will be cut off" (Ps 37:38); "The face of Yahweh is against those who do evil, To cut off the remembrance of them from the earth" (Ps 34:16); "But you, O God, [by your Speech] will bring them down into the pit of destruction: Bloodthirsty and deceitful men will not live out half their days" (Ps 55:23); "Surely you will slay the wicked, O God: Depart from me therefore, you⁺ bloodthirsty men" (Ps 139:19); "Depart from me, you⁺ evildoers, That I may keep the commandments of my God" (Ps 119:115).
Proverbs concentrates the picture into terse couplets. The wicked are restless: "For they don't sleep, except they do evil; And their sleep is taken away, unless they cause some to fall" (Pr 4:16). They are caught by what they do: "His own iniquities will take the wicked, And he will be held with the cords of his sin" (Pr 5:22); "Whoever digs a pit will fall in it; And he who rolls a stone, it will return on him" (Pr 26:27); "He who digs a pit will fall into it; and whoever breaks through a wall, a serpent will bite him" (Eccl 10:8). They are afraid where there is no fear: "The wicked flee when no man pursues; But the righteous are bold as a lion" (Pr 28:1). Their houses come down: "The wicked are overthrown, and are not; But the house of the righteous will stand" (Pr 12:7); "When the whirlwind passes, the wicked is no more; But the righteous is an everlasting foundation" (Pr 10:25). Their days are shortened: "The fear of Yahweh prolongs days; But the years of the wicked will be shortened" (Pr 10:27). Their end is appointed: "But the wicked will be cut off from the land, And betrayers will be rooted out of it" (Pr 2:22); "The wicked is thrust down in his evildoing; But the righteous has a refuge in his death" (Pr 14:32); "The wicked earns deceitful wages; But he who sows righteousness [has] a sure reward. He who is steadfast in righteousness, to life; And he who pursues evil, to his death. Those who are perverse in heart are disgusting to Yahweh; But such as are perfect in [their] way are his delight. [Though] hand [join] in hand, the evil man will not be unpunished; But the seed of the righteous will be delivered" (Pr 11:18-21). Their feet are an idiom for the same restless violence: "A heart that devises wicked purposes, Feet that are swift in running to mischief" (Pr 6:18); the prophets pick up the picture — "Their feet run to evil, and they hurry to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction are in their paths" (Isa 59:7) — and Paul cites it in Romans: "Their feet are swift to shed blood" (Rom 3:15). Their counsel laughs in the day of calamity: "I also will laugh in [the day of] your⁺ calamity; I will mock when your⁺ fear comes... Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me: For they hated knowledge, And did not choose the fear of Yahweh" (Pr 1:26-29).
The wicked also lay snares. The figure is constant in the Psalter — "For without cause they have hid for me the pit of their net; Without cause they have dug [it] for my soul" (Ps 35:7); "The proud have dug pits for me, Who are not according to your law" (Ps 119:85); "The wicked have laid a snare for me; Yet I have not gone astray from your precepts" (Ps 119:110); "The proud have hid a snare for me, and cords; They have spread a net by the wayside; They have set traps for me. Selah" (Ps 140:5); "Keep me from the snare which they have laid for me, And from the traps of the workers of iniquity" (Ps 141:9); "When my spirit was overwhelmed inside me, You knew my path. In the way in which I walk They have hidden a snare for me" (Ps 142:3) — and Jeremiah names them outright: "For among my people are found wicked men: they watch, as a fowler lying in wait; they set a trap, they catch men" (Jer 5:26); "Let a cry be heard from their houses, when you will bring a troop suddenly on them; for they have dug a pit to take me, and hid snares for my feet" (Jer 18:22). Hosea opens with the same figure: "Hear this, O you⁺ priests, and listen, O house of Israel, and give ear, O house of the king; for to you⁺ pertains the judgment; for you⁺ have been a snare at Mizpah, and a net spread on Tabor" (Hos 5:1).
The Prophetic Indictment
The prophets bring the wicked under formal indictment. Isaiah opens with one: "Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, sons who deal corruptly! They have forsaken Yahweh, they have despised the Holy One of Israel, they are estranged backward" (Isa 1:4); "Therefore the Lord will not show mercy over their young men, neither will he have compassion on their fatherless and widows; for everyone is profane and an evildoer, and every mouth speaks folly" (Isa 9:17). The image of the troubled sea fixes the wicked man's interior unrest: "But the wicked are like the troubled sea; for it can't rest, and its waters cast up mire and dirt" (Isa 57:20). The seed-line sentence is Isaiah's: "You will not be joined with them in burial, because you have destroyed your land, you have slain your people; the seed of evildoers will not be named forever" (Isa 14:20). The verdict is fire: "Therefore as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as the dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root will be as rottenness, and their blossom will go up as dust; because they have rejected the law of Yahweh of hosts, and despised the [Speech] of the Holy One of Israel" (Isa 5:24); "I will destine you⁺ to the sword, and you⁺ will all bow down to the slaughter; because when I called, you⁺ did not answer; when I spoke, you⁺ did not hear; but you⁺ did that which was evil in my eyes, and chose that in which I did not delight" (Isa 65:12). And the verse that locks in the contrast is direct: "Say⁺ of the righteous, that [it will be] well [with him]; for they will eat the fruit of their doings" (Isa 3:10), set against "look, my slaves will sing for joy of heart, but you⁺ will cry for sorrow of heart, and will wail for vexation of spirit" (Isa 65:14).
Jeremiah keeps describing the wicked as those who follow vanity: "thus says Yahweh, What unrighteousness have your⁺ fathers found in [my Speech], that they have gone far from me, and have walked after vanity, and have become vain?" (Jer 2:5); "But they are together brutish and foolish: the instruction of idols! It is but a stock" (Jer 10:8); "O Yahweh, my strength, and my stronghold, and my refuge in the day of affliction, to you will the nations come from the ends of the earth, and will say, Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, [even] vanity and things in which there is no profit" (Jer 16:19). Jonah names the same posture: "Those who regard lying vanities Forsake their own mercy" (Jonah 2:8); the singer in Ps 31:6 says it as a confession of his own loyalty: "I hate those who regard lying vanities; But I trust in Yahweh." The threat against the wicked is direct in Deuteronomy: "They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; They have provoked me to anger with their vanities" (Deut 32:21); and the historian uses the same noun for the kings: "for all the sins of Baasha, and the sins of Elah his son, which they sinned, and with which they made Israel to sin, to provoke Yahweh, the God of Israel, to anger with their vanities" (1 Kings 16:13).
Ezekiel separates the persons. "The soul who sins will die: the son will not bear the iniquity of the father, neither will the father bear the iniquity of the son; the righteousness of the righteous will be on him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be on him. But if the wicked turns from all his sins that he has committed, and keeps all my statutes, and does that which is lawful and right, he will surely live, he will not die... Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked? says the Sovereign Yahweh; and not rather that he should return from his way, and live? But when the righteous turns away from his righteousness, and commits iniquity, and does according to all the disgusting things that the wicked man does, will he live? None of his righteous deeds that he has done will be remembered: in his trespass that he has trespassed, and in his sin that he has sinned, in them he will die" (Ezek 18:20-24). The marking of the remnant in Ezekiel 9 sets the same line at the city gate: "Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and that cry over all the disgusting things that are done in the midst of it" (Ezek 9:4). The threat-formulae stack up across the books — "But if you⁺ will still do wickedly, you⁺ will be consumed, both you⁺ and your⁺ king" (1 Sam 12:25); "And it will come to pass, that as all the good things have come upon you⁺ of which Yahweh your⁺ God spoke to you⁺, so will Yahweh bring on you⁺ all the evil things, until he destroys you⁺ from off this good land which Yahweh your⁺ God has given you⁺" (Josh 23:15); "And I will come near to you⁺ to judgment; and [my Speech] will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against the false swearers, and against those who unjustly reduce the wages of the hired worker, the widow, and the fatherless, and who turn aside the sojourner [from his right], and do not fear me, says Yahweh of hosts" (Mal 3:5). And Malachi closes with the figure of stubble in the furnace: "For, look, the day comes, it burns as a furnace; and all the proud, and all who work wickedness, will be stubble; and the day that comes will burn them up, says Yahweh of hosts, that it will leave them neither root nor branch... And you⁺ will tread down the wicked; for they will be ashes under the soles of your⁺ feet in the day that I make, says Yahweh of hosts" (Mal 4:1-3). The same prophet states the eventual public verdict: "Then you⁺ will return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him who serves God and him who does not serve him" (Mal 3:18).
Stubble: The End-Image of the Wicked
The prophets and poets converge on a single end-image for the wicked. They are stubble before fire and chaff before wind. "That they are as stubble before the wind, And as chaff that the storm carries away" (Job 21:18); "O my God, make them like the whirling dust; As stubble before the wind" (Ps 83:13); "Look, they will be as stubble; the fire will burn them; they will not deliver their soul from the power of the flame: it will not be charcoal for their bread, nor a fire to sit before" (Isa 47:14); "Like the noise of chariots on the tops of the mountains they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devours the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array" (Joel 2:5); "For entangled like thorns, and drunk as with their drink, they are consumed completely as dry stubble" (Nah 1:10). Hosea uses the chaff-figure for the same generation: "Therefore they will be as the morning cloud, and as the dew that passes early away, as the chaff that is driven with the whirlwind out of the threshing-floor, and as the smoke out of the chimney" (Hos 13:3). Isaiah pairs the figures in his survey of the nations: "The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters: but he will rebuke them, and they will flee far off, and will be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like the whirling dust before the storm" (Isa 17:13); "Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded; they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, which is blighted before the east wind" (Isa 37:27); "Yes, they have not been planted; yes, they have not been sown; yes, their stock has not taken root in the earth: moreover he blows on them, and they wither, and [his Speech like] the whirlwind takes them away as stubble" (Isa 40:24). The grass-figure is in the Psalter as well — "For they will soon be cut down like the grass, And wither as the green herb" (Ps 37:2); "When the wicked spring as the grass, And when all the workers of iniquity flourish; It is that they will be destroyed forever" (Ps 92:7). The unburied corpse-figure runs alongside it: "They will die grievous deaths: they will not be lamented, neither will they be buried; they will be as dung on the face of the ground; and they will be consumed by the sword, and by famine; and their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the heavens, and for the beasts of the earth" (Jer 16:4); "And the slain of Yahweh will be at that day from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth: they will not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried; they will be dung on the face of the ground" (Jer 25:33).
Sirach's Portrait of the Wicked Numerous
Sirach extends the contrast between righteous and wicked across whole chapters. The opening of chapter 16 is the longest sustained warning in the book against the assumption that numerous wicked offspring is a blessing: "Do not desire the form of young men of falsehood; And do not rejoice in sons of wickedness. And even though they were fruitful, do not exult in them; If the fear of Yahweh is not with them. Do not trust in their life; And do not put confidence in their footsteps. For one is better than a thousand; And to die childless than to have sons of wickedness" (Sir 16:1-3). The argument continues with a list of the unspared: "From one who fears Yahweh, a city will be inhabited; And from a family of betrayers, it will be desolate. Many such things has my eye seen; And numerous such things has my ear heard. In the congregation of the wicked, a fire is burning; And in a godless nation, wrath is kindled. He did not forgive the ancient princes; Those who rebelled in their strength. And he did not spare the place where Lot sojourned; Those who were furious in their pride. And he did not spare the nation devoted to destruction; Those who were trodden down in their iniquity. Likewise [he did not spare] six hundred thousand on foot; Those who were taken away in the pride of their heart" (Sir 16:4-10). The conclusion locks in the principle: "And if there is another who is stiff-necked; It would be a wonder if he were to be unpunished. For mercy and anger are with him; And he forgives and pardons, but will pour out his wrath. As is the multitude of his mercies, so is his reproof: He will judge a man according to his works. The unrighteous will not escape in robbery: And he will not cause the desire of the righteous to cease. Everyone who does righteousness has a reward; And everyone will go forth according to his works" (Sir 16:11-14).
Sirach 21 shapes the wicked man as the fool whose path runs into Hades. "My son, have you sinned? Do not add to it; And make supplication concerning your former sins. Flee from sin as from the face of a serpent; For if you come near it, it will bite you; Its teeth are lion's teeth, Slaying the souls of men. Like a two-edged sword is all iniquity, From its stroke there is no healing. Tyranny and violence destroy wealth, So the house of the arrogant is desolated... He who hates reproof [walks] in the path of a sinner, But he who fears the Lord will turn [to him] whole-heartedly. The wise discerns him who is before him, And spies out the sinner at once. He who builds his house with other men's money, Is as one gathering stones for his burial mound. [Like] flax wrapped together is the gathering of the ungodly, And their end is a flame of fire. The way of sinners is made smooth without stones, And at its end is the pit of Hades" (Sir 21:1-10). The warnings return again and again to the same verdicts on the type: "Do not be jealous of a wicked man; For you do not know what his day [will be]" (Sir 9:11); "Do not kindle with the coal of the wicked; Or else you will be burned with the flame of his fire" (Sir 8:10); "It is not goodness to support the wicked; And likewise it is not righteousness for him who did so" (Sir 12:3); "For God also hates the evil; And to the wicked he will render vengeance" (Sir 12:6); "Why will a wolf be joined to a lamb? So it is with the wicked to the righteous" (Sir 13:17); "Praise is not seemly in the mouth of the wicked; For it was not distributed to him from God" (Sir 15:9); "Yahweh hates disgusting behavior and evil; And he will not let it happen to those who fear him" (Sir 15:13); "Opposite evil [is] good, and opposite death [is] life; Likewise opposite the godly [is] the sinner" (Sir 33:14); "The paths of the perfect are straight, [Even] so are they stumbling-blocks to the presumptuous" (Sir 39:24); "A branch of violence has no shoot in it, And the root of the godless is upon a rocky crag" (Sir 40:15). The destruction-language for the wicked man is grouped at chapters 19-21 and 40-41: "And a brazen soul will destroy its owner" (Sir 19:3); "A slip on the pavement is better than [a slip] of the tongue, Thus the fall of the wicked comes swiftly" (Sir 20:18); "Preferable is a thief to one who continually lies, But both will inherit destruction" (Sir 20:25); "[Like] flax wrapped together is the gathering of the ungodly, And their end is a flame of fire" (Sir 21:9); "For the wicked evil was created, And because of him destruction does not depart" (Sir 40:10); "When it rises rocks are rolled down, So does it suddenly come to an end forever" (Sir 40:14); "It is like the reeds upon the bank of a river, Which will be dried up before every other plant" (Sir 40:16); "All that is of nothing returns to nothing, So the godless man, from nothingness to nothingness" (Sir 41:10).
The seed-of-the-wicked theme is in Sirach as in the prophets: "A disgusting offspring is the generation of sinners, And a godless sprout is in the dwellings of the wicked. From the son of the unrighteous dominion will be wrenched away, And with their posterity will be perpetual reproach. Children will curse a wicked father, For because of him they suffer reproach. Woe to you, ungodly men, Who have forsaken the law of the Most High God. If you⁺ be fruitful [it will be] for harm, And if you⁺ bear children [it will be] for sighing; And if you⁺ stumble [it will be] for everlasting joy, And if you⁺ die [it will be] for a curse" (Sir 41:5-9). The same generation-formula stands in Deuteronomy and Proverbs: "They have dealt corruptly with him, [they are] not his sons, [it is] their blemish; [They are] a perverse and crooked generation" (Deut 32:5); "There is a generation who are pure in their own eyes, And [yet] are not washed from their filthiness" (Pr 30:12); and Jesus speaks the words back over his own age: "And Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you⁺, and bear with you⁺?" (Luke 9:41).
The Hellenizers and Antiochus in 1 Maccabees
In 1 Maccabees the wicked become a historical class — Israelites who sided with Antiochus, and Antiochus himself. The book opens by naming the latter category: "And there came out of them a wicked root, Antiochus Epiphanes, the son of King Antiochus, who had been a hostage at Rome: and he reigned in the hundred and thirty-seventh year of the kingdom of the Greeks" (1 Macc 1:10). The Hellenizer movement inside Israel is described in identical vocabulary: "In those days there went out of Israel wicked men, and they persuaded many, saying: Let's go, and make a covenant with the nations that are round about us: for since we departed from them, many evils have befallen us. And the word seemed good in their eyes. And some of the people determined to do this, and went to the king: and he gave them license to do after the ordinances of the nations. And they built a place for men to prey upon naked boys in Jerusalem, according to the customs of the nations. And they made themselves foreskins, and departed from the holy covenant, and joined themselves to the nations, and were sold to do evil" (1 Macc 1:11-15). The royal decree is the institutional form of the same wickedness: "And King Antiochus wrote to all his kingdom, that all the people should be one: and every one should leave his own law... And the king sent letters by the hands of messengers to Jerusalem, and to the cities of Judah: that they should follow the foreign customs of the land; and should forbid burnt-offerings and sacrifice, and drink offering from the sanctuary; and should profane the sabbaths, and the festival days. And to defile the sanctuary, and the holy things. And to build altars, and temples, and idols, and to sacrifice swine's flesh, and unclean beasts. And that they should leave their sons uncircumcised, and let their souls be defiled with all uncleannesses, and detestable things, to the end that they should forget the law, and should change all the ordinances of God. And that whoever would not do according to the word of the king should be put to death" (1 Macc 1:41-50). The garrison itself is described in the umbrella's idiom: "And they placed there a sinful nation, wicked men, and they fortified themselves in it. And they stored up armor, and victuals, and gathered together the spoils of Jerusalem" (1 Macc 1:34); the garrison-stores become a snare on the city — "And laid them up there: and they became a great snare" (1 Macc 1:35) — and the apostates who accept the decree are gathered to it: "Then many of the people were gathered to those who had forsaken the law: and they committed evils in the land" (1 Macc 1:52). The book records that "all the people put crowns upon themselves after his death, and their sons after them, many years; and evils were multiplied in the earth" (1 Macc 1:9).
The Maccabean response treats this class of person under the same vocabulary used by the Psalter and Proverbs. Mattathias kills the apostate Jew at the altar at Modin and refuses the royal honor: "And those who were sent from Antiochus, answering, said to Mattathias: You are a ruler, and an honorable, and great man in this city, and adorned with sons, and brothers. Therefore you come first, and obey the king's commandment, as all nations have done, and the men of Judah, and those who remain in Jerusalem: and you, and your sons, will be in the number of the king's friends, and enriched with gold, and silver, and many presents. Then Mattathias answered, and said with a loud voice: Although all the nations in the kingdom of the king obey him, so as to depart every man from the service of his fathers, and have chosen his commandments: I and my sons, and my brothers will obey the covenant of our fathers. God be merciful to us: it is not profitable for us to forsake the law, and the ordinances: We will not listen to the words of the king, to transgress our service, to the right hand or to the left. Now as he left off speaking these words, there came a certain Jew in the sight of all to sacrifice to the idols on the altar in the city of Modin, according to the king's commandment. And Mattathias saw and was zealous, and his reins trembled, and his wrath was kindled according to the judgment, and running on him he slew him on the altar" (1 Macc 2:15-26). The Maccabean campaign is then narrated in the same register: "And they gathered an army, And slew the sinners in their wrath, And the wicked men in their indignation: And the rest fled to the nations for safety" (1 Macc 2:44); "And he pursued the wicked and sought them out, And those who troubled his people he burned" (1 Macc 3:5); "And he continued further: and the host of the wicked went up with him, strong helpers, to be revenged of the sons of Israel" (1 Macc 3:15); "And the wicked were driven away for fear of him, And all the workers of iniquity were troubled: And salvation prospered in his hand" (1 Macc 3:6). Alcimus's faction surfaces under the same word: "And there came to him the wicked and ungodly men of Israel: and Alcimus was at the head of them, who desired to be made high priest" (1 Macc 7:5). After Judas's death the class re-emerges: "And it came to pass after the death of Judas, that the wicked began to put forth their heads in all the confines of Israel, and all the workers of iniquity rose up" (1 Macc 9:23); "And Bacchides chose the wicked men, and made them lords of the country" (1 Macc 9:25); and the closing line of the chapter is a programmatic statement: "So the sword ceased from Israel: and Jonathan dwelt in Machmas, and Jonathan began there to judge the people, and he destroyed the wicked out of Israel" (1 Macc 9:73).
NT Notice of the Wicked
The NT carries the figure forward without changing its shape. Jesus addresses his generation as wicked — "And Jesus answered and said, O faithless and perverse generation" (Luke 9:41) — and his eschatological dismissal repeats the OT formula on the workers of iniquity: "and he will speak, saying to you⁺, I don't know you⁺ or where you⁺ are from; depart from me, all you⁺ workers of iniquity" (Luke 13:27). Judas's appearance in the garden is given the same idiom: "While he yet spoke, look, a multitude, and he who was called Judas, one of the twelve, went before them; and he drew near to Jesus to kiss him" (Luke 22:47). The Pharisees and Herodians attempt the snare-tactic the Psalter described: "laying wait for him, to catch something out of his mouth" (Luke 11:54); "And they watched him, and sent forth spies, who feigned themselves to be righteous, that they might take hold of his speech, so as to deliver him up to the rule and to the authority of the governor" (Luke 20:20); "And the Pharisees came forth, and began to question with him, seeking of him a sign from heaven, trying him" (Mark 8:11); "And Pharisees came to him, and asked him, Is it lawful for a man to divorce [his] wife? trying him" (Mark 10:2); "And they send to him certain of the Pharisees and of the Herodians, that they might catch him in talk" (Mark 12:13).
John gives the figure its sharpest patrilineal form: "You⁺ are of the father the devil, and the desires of your⁺ father it is your⁺ will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and did not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of lies" (John 8:44). The same diagnostic stands in 1 John 3:10: "In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: anyone not doing righteousness is not of God, neither is he who is not loving his brother." Paul keeps the contrast forensic — "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hinder the truth in unrighteousness" (Rom 1:18); "And even as they did not approve to have God in [their] knowledge, God delivered them up to a disapproved mind, to do those things which are not fitting" (Rom 1:28); "tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who works evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Greek" (Rom 2:9); "Let no man deceive you⁺ with empty words: for because of these things the wrath of God comes on the sons of disobedience" (Eph 5:6); "among whom we also all once lived in the desires of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest" (Eph 2:3). His list-language traces the same type: "as knowing this, that law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and unruly, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers" (1 Tim 1:9); "without natural affection, implacable, slanderers, without self-control, fierce, no lovers of good" (2 Tim 3:3); "Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord will render to him according to his works" (2 Tim 4:14); "whose end is perdition, whose god is the belly, and [whose] glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things" (Phil 3:19).
The end of the wicked man is restated across the NT in the same idioms the OT used. Peter pictures it: "These are springs without water, and mists driven by a storm; for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved" (2 Pet 2:17); "And if the righteous is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and sinner appear?" (1 Pet 4:18); "but the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men" (2 Pet 3:7); "For if God did not spare angels who sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and delivered them to chains of darkness, to be reserved to judgment; and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah with seven others, a preacher of righteousness, when he brought a flood on the world of the ungodly... the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of trial, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment to the day of judgment" (2 Pet 2:4-9). Jude condenses the same picture into a single line: "Wild waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever" (Jude 1:13). Paul fixes the verdict on the persecutors: "who will pay a penalty of eternal destruction away from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might" (2 Thess 1:9). And Hebrews makes the punishment-question explicit: "of how much sorer punishment, do you⁺ think, he will be judged worthy, who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the covenant with which he was sanctified a common thing, and has done despite to the Spirit of grace?" (Heb 10:29).
The book of Revelation carries the umbrella into the eschaton. The unsealed are the wicked: "And it was said to them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree, but only such men as do not have the seal of God on their foreheads" (Rev 9:4). Their portion is named: "But for the fearful, and unbelieving, and those who have become disgusting, and murderers, and whores, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, their part [will be] in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone; which is the second death" (Rev 21:8); "he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed undiluted in the cup of his anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; and they have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name" (Rev 14:10-11); "And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where are also the beast and the false prophet; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever" (Rev 20:10); "And if any was not found written in the Book of Life, he was cast into the lake of fire" (Rev 20:15). And Babylon is the last collective form of the wicked city: "And a strong angel took up a stone as it were a great millstone and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with a mighty fall will Babylon, the great city, be cast down, and will be found no more at all" (Rev 18:21). Across the entire span the umbrella holds the same shape Malachi gave it — "Then you⁺ will return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him who serves God and him who does not serve him" (Mal 3:18) — and the same end-image Daniel gave it: "And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt" (Dan 12:2).