רָשָׁע

רָשָׁע (rasha) describes someone wicked, guilty, morally wrong, or in the wrong. In legal settings it can designate the party found guilty, as when Deuteronomy 25 contrasts justifying the righteous and condemning the guilty. In wisdom, poetry, and prophecy it often names people or patterns characterized by violence, deceit, exploitation, idolatry, or refusal of God's ways. The term can function adjectivally or as a substantive category, but it should not replace the passage's evidence about conduct.

Psalm 1 contrasts the way of the wicked with the fruitful path shaped by the Lord's instruction. That wisdom portrait names divergent paths and outcomes rather than promising that every wicked person immediately fails or every righteous person visibly prospers. Psalms 37 and 73 openly face the apparent prosperity of wrongdoers, while Job and Ecclesiastes challenge simplistic calculations of present suffering and moral status.

Ezekiel 18 says a wicked person can turn from wrongdoing and live, and it denies that God delights in the person's death. The category is morally serious but not an immutable identity placed beyond repentance. Isaiah 53:9 says the servant's grave was assigned with the wicked while immediately denying violence and deceit on his part. Later canonical application matters, yet H7563 there describes the company or classification of death, not the servant's moral character.

Rasha ranges from forensic guilt to morally wicked conduct and the wisdom category of wicked people. Legal evidence, observable behavior, literary contrast, and the possibility of repentance shape its force.