1 Kings 12:10-11

12:10 The young advisers with whom Rehoboam ¹  had grown up said to him, “Say this to these people who have said to you, ‘Your father made us work hard, but now lighten our burden.’ ²  Say this to them: ‘I am a lot harsher than my father! ³  12:11 My father imposed heavy demands on you; I will make them even heavier. ⁴  My father punished you with ordinary whips; I will punish you with whips that really sting your flesh.’” ⁵ 

Proverbs 13:10

13:10 With pride ⁶  comes only ⁷  contention,

but wisdom is with the well-advised. ⁸ 

Proverbs 16:18

16:18 Pride ⁹  goes ¹⁰  before destruction,

and a haughty spirit before a fall. ¹¹ 

Proverbs 17:14

17:14 Starting a quarrel ¹²  is like letting out water; ¹³ 

stop it before strife breaks out! ¹⁴ 

Ecclesiastes 7:8

7:8 The end of a matter ¹⁵  is better than its beginning;

likewise, patience ¹⁶  is better than pride. ¹⁷ 

James 3:14--4:2

3:14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfishness in your hearts, do not boast and tell lies against the truth. 3:15 Such ¹⁸  wisdom does not come ¹⁹  from above but is earthly, natural, ²⁰  demonic. 3:16 For where there is jealousy and selfishness, there is disorder and every evil practice. 3:17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, accommodating, ²¹  full of mercy and good fruit, ²²  impartial, and not hypocritical. ²³  3:18 And the fruit that consists of righteousness ²⁴  is planted ²⁵  in peace among ²⁶  those who make peace.

Passions and Pride

4:1 Where do the conflicts and where ²⁷  do the quarrels among you come from? Is it not from this, ²⁸  from your passions that battle inside you? ²⁹  4:2 You desire and you do not have; you murder and envy and you cannot obtain; you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask;

¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (Rehoboam) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² tn Heb “Your father made our yoke heavy, but make it lighter upon us.”

³ tn Heb “My little one is thicker than my father’s hips.” The referent of “my little one” is not clear. The traditional view is that it refers to the little finger. As the following statement makes clear, Rehoboam’s point is that he is more harsh and demanding than his father.

⁴ tn Heb “and now my father placed upon you a heavy yoke, but I will add to your yoke.”

⁵ tn Heb “My father punished you with whips, but I will punish you with scorpions.” “Scorpions” might allude to some type of torture using poisonous insects, but more likely it refers to a type of whip that inflicts an especially biting, painful wound. Cf. CEV “whips with pieces of sharp metal.”

⁶ sn The parallelism suggests pride here means contempt for the opinions of others. The wise listen to advice rather than argue out of stubborn pride.

⁷ tn The particle רַק (raq, “only”) modifies the noun “contention” – only contention can come from such a person.

⁸ tn The Niphal of יָעַץ (ya’ats, “to advise; to counsel”) means “to consult together; to take counsel.” It means being well-advised, receiving advice or consultation (cf. NCV “those who take advice are wise”).

⁹ sn The two lines of this proverb are synonymous parallelism, and so there are parasynonyms. “Pride” is paired with “haughty spirit” (“spirit” being a genitive of specification); and “destruction” is matched with “a tottering, falling.”

¹⁰ tn Heb “[is] before destruction.”

¹¹ sn Many proverbs have been written in a similar way to warn against the inevitable disintegration and downfall of pride. W. McKane records an Arabic proverb: “The nose is in the heavens, the seat is in the mire” (Proverbs [OTL], 490).

¹² tn Heb “the beginning of a quarrel”; TEV, CEV “The start of an argument.”

¹³ tn The verse simply begins with “letting out water.” This phrase is a metaphor, but most English versions have made it a simile (supplying “like” or “as”). R. N. Whybray takes it literally and makes it the subject of the clause: “stealing water starts a quarrel” (Proverbs [CBC], 100). However, the verb more likely means “to let out, set free” and not “to steal,” for which there are clearer words.

¹⁴ tn The temporal clause is formed with the prepositional “before,” the infinitive construct, and the following subjective genitive. The verb גָּלַע (gala’) means “to expose; to lay bare,” and in the Hitpael “to disclose oneself; to break out.”

¹⁵ tn The term דָבָר (davar) denotes “matter; thing” here rather than “speech; word,” as the parallelism with “patience” suggests. The term was misunderstood as “speech; word” by the Vulgate (so also Douay).

¹⁶ tn Heb “the patient of spirit.”

¹⁷ tn Heb “the proud of spirit.”

¹⁸ tn Grk “This.”

¹⁹ tn Grk “come down”; “descend.”

²⁰ tn Grk “soulish,” which describes life apart from God, characteristic of earthly human life as opposed to what is spiritual. Cf. 1 Cor 2:14; 15:44-46; Jude 19.

²¹ tn Or “willing to yield,” “open to persuasion.”

²² tn Grk “fruits.” The plural Greek term καρπούς has been translated with the collective singular “fruit.”

²³ tn Or “sincere.”

²⁴ tn Grk “the fruit of righteousness,” meaning righteous living as a fruit, as the thing produced.

²⁵ tn Grk “is sown.”

²⁶ tn Or “for,” or possibly “by.”

²⁷ tn The word “where” is repeated in Greek for emphasis.

²⁸ tn Grk “from here.”

²⁹ tn Grk “in your members [i.e., parts of the body].”