13:23), 'to cut down' as a tree (Isa. 37:24).  The word kerithuth, a feminine

noun from karath, is translated 'divorce' and 'divorcement' in Deuteronomy

24:1,3; Isaiah 50:1; Jeremiah 3:8.

Karath is used continually with reference to the cutting up of the

bodies of the animals slain for sacrificial purposes (Jer. 34:18).  Psalm

50:5 literally rendered is, 'those who have cut in pieces My victim in

sacrifice'.  Genesis 15:9-17 is an illustration of the practice of cutting or

dividing the bodies of the victims, but in this passage another word is used

instead of karath.  This word karath is used in that solemn prophecy of

Daniel 9:26, 'Messiah shall be cut off and shall have nothing'.  This cutting

off was the death on the Cross.  'He was cut off (gazar) out of the land of

the living' (Isa. 53:8).

The repeated threat found in the law against offenders is, 'that soul

shall be cut off from among the people' (Exod. 12:15; Lev. 19:8; Num. 15:30,

etc.).  The words of Jeremiah 48:2, 'Come let us cut it off from being a

nation', give us some idea of the force of the word, but when we read it in

Genesis 9:11 in reference to the Flood, we realize how tremendous this

cutting off really is.  There in Genesis 9 the words 'cut off' correspond to

the words 'die' and 'destroy' of 6:17 and 9:11, and 'curse' and 'smite' of

Genesis 8:21.

Turning from these historical references we find that this severe

judgment is held over the head of impenitent sinners:

'Evil doers shall be cut off' (Psa. 37:9).

'The end of the wicked shall be cut off' (Psa. 37:38).

We have already said that the primary meaning of the word karath had

reference to the cutting down of a tree.  This is clearly substantiated by

reading the closing verses of Psalm 37.  The words 'cut off' occur five times

in this Psalm (verses 9,22,28,34,38).  If in verse 9 we read that the evil-

doers shall be cut off, we read in verse 10, 'For yet a little while, and the

wicked shall not be', and lest the reader should object to this strong term

indicative of extinction, the Scripture continues, 'Yea, thou shalt

diligently consider his place, and it shall not be'.

Verse 28, 'the seed of the wicked shall be cut off'; the antithesis is

given in the sentence before concerning the saints, 'they are preserved for

ever'.  Verse 34 says, 'when the wicked are cut off, thou shalt see it'.  We

are not left to our own speculations as to what the saints shall see, for

verses 35 and 36 continue, and give us the figure of the wicked 'like a green

bay tree, yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not, yea, I sought him, but he

could not be found'.  The 'end' of the righteous is 'peace', but 'the

trangressors shall be destroyed together and the end of the wicked shall be

cut off'.

Again we pause to consider the testimony of this word to the doctrine

before us.  What are the wages of sin?  Abad, 'to perish'; shamad, 'to be

destroyed'; tsamath, 'to be cut off'.  Every figure used concerning the three

words just considered enforces the meaning.  The divorcement of man and wife;

the complete loss of the unredeemed dwelling house; the vanishing of the

stream; the extinction of the tree whose very place could not be found, all

alike testify to the truth of the Scriptures, that the wages of sin is death,

and give the lie to the vain deceitful philosophy which says, 'There is no

death, what seems so is transition', and which tells us that death is but