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Psalm 146 · a question people ask

Who are "the wicked" whose way the LORD turns "upside down" (146:9)?

In the text

The psalm doesn't say. They get half a line, at the end of the list: "He upholds the fatherless and widow, but he turns the way of the wicked upside down" (146:9). In Hebrew the way of the wicked is the phrase of Psalm 1's last line: "For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish" (Psalm 1:6). Turns upside down is a verb Brown-Driver-Briggs gives as "be bent, crooked", and in this form "make crooked" (tap upside down). The psalm names no one, and these notes don't name anyone for it.

The verses

“The LORD preserves the foreigners. He upholds the fatherless and widow, but he turns the way of the wicked upside down.”
Psalm 146:9 · World English Bible
“For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish.”
Psalm 1:6 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Psalm 146

Psalm 146: Whose hope is in the LORD

The WEB says help twice, but in Hebrew they are two words: a son of man has no teshu'ah (146:3), and happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his ezer (146:5). And the one "who made heaven and earth" (146:6) is, in the same Hebrew word, oseh, the one "who executes justice for the oppressed" (146:7).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions