30:13 There is a generation whose eyes are so lofty, 1
and whose eyelids are lifted up disdainfully. 2
10:4 The wicked man is so arrogant he always thinks,
“God won’t hold me accountable; he doesn’t care.” 3
18:27 For you deliver oppressed 4 people,
but you bring down those who have a proud look. 5
73:6 Arrogance is their necklace, 6
and violence their clothing. 7
73:7 Their prosperity causes them to do wrong; 8
their thoughts are sinful. 9
73:8 They mock 10 and say evil things; 11
they proudly threaten violence. 12
101:5 I will destroy anyone who slanders his neighbor in secret.
I will not tolerate anyone who has a cocky demeanor and an arrogant attitude. 13
A song of ascents, 15 by David.
131:1 O Lord, my heart is not proud,
nor do I have a haughty look. 16
I do not have great aspirations,
or concern myself with things that are beyond me. 17
2:11 Proud men will be brought low,
arrogant men will be humiliated; 18
the Lord alone will be exalted 19
in that day.
3:9 The look on their faces 20 testifies to their guilt; 21
like the people of Sodom they openly boast of their sin. 22
Too bad for them! 23
For they bring disaster on themselves.
3:16 The Lord says,
“The women 24 of Zion are proud.
They walk with their heads high 25
and flirt with their eyes.
They skip along 26
and the jewelry on their ankles jingles. 27
3:1 Look, the sovereign Lord who commands armies 28
is about to remove from Jerusalem 29 and Judah
every source of security, including 30
all the food and water, 31
5:5 Now I will inform you
what I am about to do to my vineyard:
I will remove its hedge and turn it into pasture, 32
I will break its wall and allow animals to graze there. 33
1 tn Heb “how high are its eyes!” This is a use of the interrogative pronoun in exclamatory sentences (R. J. Williams, Hebrew Syntax, 25, §127).
2 tn Heb “its eyelids are lifted up,” a gesture indicating arrogance and contempt or disdain for others. To make this clear, the present translation supplies the adverb “disdainfully” at the end of the verse.
3 tn Heb “the wicked [one], according to the height of his nose, he does not seek, there is no God, all his thoughts.” The phrase “height of his nose” probably refers to an arrogant or snooty attitude; it likely pictures one with his nose turned upward toward the sky in pride. One could take the “wicked” as the subject of the negated verb “seek,” in which case the point is that the wicked do not “seek” God. The translation assumes that this statement, along with “there is no God,” is what the wicked man thinks to himself. In this case God is the subject of the verb “seek,” and the point is that God will not hold the wicked man accountable for his actions. Verse 13 strongly favors this interpretation. The statement “there is no God” is not a philosophical assertion that God does not exist, but rather a confident affirmation that he is unconcerned about how men live morally and ethically (see v. 11).
4 tn Or perhaps, “humble” (note the contrast with those who are proud).
5 tn Heb “but proud eyes you bring low.” 2 Sam 22:28 reads, “your eyes [are] upon the proud, [whom] you bring low.”
6 sn Arrogance is their necklace. The metaphor suggests that their arrogance is something the wicked “wear” proudly. It draws attention to them, just as a beautiful necklace does to its owner.
7 tn Heb “a garment of violence covers them.” The metaphor suggests that violence is habitual for the wicked. They “wear” it like clothing; when one looks at them, violence is what one sees.
8 tc The MT reads “it goes out from fatness their eye,” which might be paraphrased, “their eye protrudes [or “bulges”] because of fatness.” This in turn might refer to their greed; their eyes “bug out” when they see rich food or produce (the noun חֵלֶב [khelev, “fatness”] sometimes refers to such food or produce). However, when used with the verb יָצָא (yatsa’, “go out”) the preposition מִן (“from”) more naturally indicates source. For this reason it is preferable to emend עֵינֵמוֹ (’enemo, “their eye”) to עֲוֹנָמוֹ, (’avonamo, “their sin”) and read, “and their sin proceeds forth from fatness,” that is, their prosperity gives rise to their sinful attitudes. If one follows this textual reading, another interpretive option is to take חֵלֶב (“fatness”) in the sense of “unreceptive, insensitive” (see its use in Ps 17:10). In this case, the sin of the wicked proceeds forth from their spiritual insensitivity.
9 tn Heb “the thoughts of [their] heart [i.e., mind] cross over” (i.e., violate God’s moral boundary, see Ps 17:3).
10 tn The verb מוּק (muq, “mock”) occurs only here in the OT.
11 tn Heb “and speak with evil.”
12 tn Heb “oppression from an elevated place they speak.” The traditional accentuation of the MT places “oppression” with the preceding line. In this case, one might translate, “they mock and speak with evil [of] oppression, from an elevated place [i.e., “proudly”] they speak.” By placing “oppression” with what follows, one achieves better poetic balance in the parallelism.
13 tn Heb “[one who has] pride of eyes and wideness [i.e., arrogance] of heart, him I will not endure.”
14 sn Psalm 131. The psalmist affirms his humble dependence on the Lord and urges Israel to place its trust in God.
15 sn The precise significance of this title, which appears in Pss 120-134, is unclear. Perhaps worshipers recited these psalms when they ascended the road to Jerusalem to celebrate annual religious festivals. For a discussion of their background see L. C. Allen, Psalms 101-150 (WBC), 219-21.
16 tn Heb “and my eyes are not lifted up.”
17 tn Heb “I do not walk in great things, and in things too marvelous for me.”
18 tn Heb “and the eyes of the pride of men will be brought low, and the arrogance of men will be brought down.” The repetition of the verbs שָׁפַל (shafal) and שָׁחָח (shakhakh) from v. 9 draws attention to the appropriate nature of the judgment. Those proud men who “bow low” before idols will be forced to “bow low” before God when he judges their sin.
19 tn Or “elevated”; CEV “honored.”
20 sn This refers to their proud, arrogant demeanor.
21 tn Heb “answers against them”; NRSV “bears witness against them.”
22 tn Heb “their sin, like Sodom, they declare, they do not conceal [it].”
23 tn Heb “woe to their soul.”
24 tn Heb “daughters” (so KJV, NAB, NRSV).
25 tn Heb “with an outstretched neck.” They proudly hold their heads high so that others can see the jewelry around their necks.
26 tn Heb “walking and skipping, they walk.”
27 tn Heb “and with their feet they jingle.”
28 tn Heb “the master, the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts].” On the title “the Lord who commands armies,” see the note at 1:9.
29 map For location see Map5-B1; Map6-F3; Map7-E2; Map8-F2; Map10-B3; JP1-F4; JP2-F4; JP3-F4; JP4-F4.
30 tn Heb “support and support.” The masculine and feminine forms of the noun are placed side-by-side to emphasize completeness. See GKC 394 §122.v.
31 tn Heb “all the support of food, and all the support of water.”
32 tn Heb “and it will become [a place for] grazing.” בָּעַר (ba’ar, “grazing”) is a homonym of the more often used verb “to burn.”
33 tn Heb “and it will become a trampled place” (NASB “trampled ground”).