Ransom (Proverbs 21:18)

Ransom: the payment demanded for the release of a person or persons being held against their will. A ransom is actually a trade off; monies paid ensure the life of another. In the Bible, it was a sin for the Jews to number themselves, however the Lord had Moses number the people in Exodus 30. The penalty for numbering was death. To ensure the life of His children, the Lord instructed Moses to receive a ransom from the people. There was no death that day.

"The wicked shall be a ransom for the [uncompromisingly] righteous, and the treacherous for the upright [because the wicked fall themselves into the traps and pits they have dug for the good]." Proverbs 21:18, Amplified

The ransom paid by the wicked for the righteous is the payment made by the simple act of irony. In other words, the wicked and treacherous men have prepared pits and traps for the righteous men of this world. These pits and traps actually become the undoing of the wicked men for they themselves become victims of their own calamity.

So what ransom is paid? A pit is dug and a trap is set for the specific purpose of catching or ensnaring something. They demand payment, for they remain set and ready to go off until something unwittingly wanders into the pit or trap. For the wicked that pray needs to be the righteous, however, they wicked become the ransom, a trade, for the life of the wicked: the trade off is the wicked for the righteous.