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Death Ends Hope for the Wicked

Proverbs 11:7 Updated American Standard Version (UASV)
⁷When a wicked man dies, his hope will perish,
and the expectation of strong men^[1] perishes too.

The same primary thought is found in both lines of this verse. It is for this reason that the Dynamic Equivalent interpretive translation[2] the Contemporary English Version (CEV) decided to render it as one line instead of two. “When the wicked die, their hopes die with them.”

When a wicked man dies, his hope will perish: The Hebrew word rendered wicked (רָשָׁע rasha) man here is an unrighteous man that is evil, with the focus on his guilt of violating God’s standards. Hope (תִּקְוָה tiqvah) and expectation are similar in meaning. Hope is the expectation of being happy. Perish (אָבַד abad) means that the wicked man’s hope is dead, destroyed, annihilated, ruined, lost, no more.

and the expectation of strong men perishes too: Again, expectation (תּוֹחֶלֶת tocheleth) has the same basic meaning as hope from line one. The strong man here has a positive feeling about his future, and these expectations are based on his power. The Hebrew (on) has been interpreted in various ways: expectation of strong men (UASV, NASB), expectation of the godless (RSV, LEB), expectation of wealth (ESV, CSB), and the hope of iniquity (ASV.) The basic sense of the Hebrew (אוֹן on) is the mental and physical strength of an unjust, evil person.

There are minor, common, normal human hopes of those who are alienated from God (having no relationship) that are bad. However, there are some wicked ones who have evil hopes, gross violations of God’s moral standards. In some cases, it seems like the wicked one’s hopes are being realized in that he may seem to have successes for decades even but know that this too is only temporary, for Proverbs 10:28 stated, “The hope of the righteous is gladness, but the expectation of the wicked comes to nothing.” So, based on Proverbs 7:11 above, the selfish hopes of wicked men, unjust men are based on the false foundation of wealth, on deception and lies, on wrong dealings, on the power or promises of these evil ones, will all come to nothing in time, even if it is in death, for they will have no resurrection hope.

[1] LXX reads hope of the ungodly

[2] https://christianpublishinghouse.co/category/bible-translation-philosophy/