Transgressors - בוגדים bogedim. The garment men, the hypocrites; those who act borrowed characters, who go under a eloak; dissemblers. All such shall be rooted out of the land; they shall not be blessed with posterity. In general it is so: and were it not so, one evil offspring succeeding another, adding their own to their predecessors' vices, the earth would become so exceedingly corrupt that a second flood, or a fire, would be necessary to purge it.

But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth,.... Suddenly by death; or in a judicial way by the hand of the civil magistrate, before they have lived out half their days; and shall not enjoy the good things of the earth they have been seeking for, and laying up, and promising themselves a long and quiet possession of; but, on the contrary, like unfruitful trees, shall be cut down, and cast into the fire; and, however, shall not dwell in the second Adam's earth, in the new earth, but shall perish out of his land, Psalm 10:16; see Psalm 37:2;

and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it; such as have acted treacherously and perfidiously (c), and are opposed to upright men; as the wicked are to the righteous, pure, and spotless; these shall not only be cut off as trees to the stump, but be rooted up, and have neither root nor branch left them; they shall have no posterity to succeed them, and their memory shall utterly perish; see Malachi 4:1; or "shall be scraped off", or "swept away" (d), as the dust and dross of the earth, and the offscouring of all things.

(c) "perfide agentis", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator; "perfidi", Cocceius, Michaelis, Schultens. (d) "eradentur", Montanus, Mercerus, Gejerus; "everrentur", Schultens.

But the wicked shall be cut off from the earth, and the transgressors shall be rooted out of it.

rooted: or, plucked up

22. transgressors-or impious rebels (compare Jer 9:2).

rooted out-utterly destroyed, as trees plucked up by the roots.

2:10-22 If we are truly wise, we shall be careful to avoid all evil company and evil practices. When wisdom has dominion over us, then it not only fills the head, but enters into the heart, and will preserve, both against corruptions within and temptations without. The ways of sin are ways of darkness, uncomfortable and unsafe: what fools are those who leave the plain, pleasant, lightsome paths of uprightness, to walk in such ways! They take pleasure in sin; both in committing it, and in seeing others commit it. Every wise man will shun such company. True wisdom will also preserve from those who lead to fleshly lusts, which defile the body, that living temple, and war against the soul. These are evils which excite the sorrow of every serious mind, and cause every reflecting parent to look upon his children with anxiety, lest they should be entangled in such fatal snares. Let the sufferings of others be our warnings. Our Lord Jesus deters from sinful pleasures, by the everlasting torments which follow them. It is very rare that any who are caught in this snare of the devil, recover themselves; so much is the heart hardened, and the mind blinded, by the deceitfulness of this sin. Many think that this caution, besides the literal sense, is to be understood as a caution against idolatry, and subjecting the soul to the body, by seeking any forbidden object. The righteous must leave the earth as well as the wicked; but the earth is a very different thing to them. To the wicked it is all the heaven they ever shall have; to the righteous it is the place of preparation for heaven. And is it all one to us, whether we share with the wicked in the miseries of their latter end, or share those everlasting joys that shall crown believers?