Proverbs 16:18

16:18 Pride ¹  goes ²  before destruction,

and a haughty spirit before a fall. ³ 

Proverbs 18:12

18:12 Before destruction the heart ⁴  of a person is proud,

but humility comes ⁵  before honor. ⁶ 

Proverbs 29:23

29:23 A person’s pride ⁷  will bring him low, ⁸ 

but one who has a lowly spirit ⁹  will gain honor.

Isaiah 10:14-16

10:14 My hand discovered the wealth of the nations, as if it were in a nest,

as one gathers up abandoned eggs,

I gathered up the whole earth.

There was no wing flapping,

or open mouth chirping.” ¹⁰ 

10:15 Does an ax exalt itself over the one who wields it,

or a saw magnify itself over the one who cuts with it? ¹¹ 

As if a scepter should brandish the one who raises it,

or a staff should lift up what is not made of wood!

10:16 For this reason ¹²  the sovereign master, the Lord who commands armies, will make his healthy ones emaciated. ¹³  His majestic glory will go up in smoke. ¹⁴ 

Isaiah 16:6

16:6 We have heard about Moab’s pride,

their great arrogance,

their boasting, pride, and excess. ¹⁵ 

But their boastful claims are empty! ¹⁶ 

Jeremiah 48:29-30

48:29 I have heard how proud the people of Moab are,

I know how haughty they are.

I have heard how arrogant, proud, and haughty they are,

what a high opinion they have of themselves. ¹⁷ 

48:30 I, the Lord, affirm that ¹⁸  I know how arrogant they are.

But their pride is ill-founded.

Their boastings will prove to be false. ¹⁹ 

Jeremiah 49:16

49:16 The terror you inspire in others ²⁰ 

and the arrogance of your heart have deceived you.

You may make your home in the clefts of the rocks;

you may occupy the highest places in the hills. ²¹ 

But even if you made your home where the eagles nest,

I would bring you down from there,”

says the Lord.

Malachi 1:4

1:4 Edom ²²  says, “Though we are devastated, we will once again build the ruined places.” So the Lord who rules over all ²³  responds, “They indeed may build, but I will overthrow. They will be known as ²⁴  the land of evil, the people with whom the Lord is permanently displeased.

[16:18]  ¹ 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.”

[16:18]  ² tn Heb “[is] before destruction.”

[16:18]  ³ 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).

[18:12]  ⁴ sn The term “heart” is a metonymy of subject, referring to the seat of the spiritual and intellectual capacities – the mind, the will, the motivations and intentions. Proud ambitions and intentions will lead to a fall.

[18:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “[is] before honor”; cf. CEV “humility leads to honor.”

[18:12]  ⁶ sn The way to honor is through humility (e.g., Prov 11:2; 15:33; 16:18). The humility and exaltation of Jesus provides the classic example (Phil 2:1-10).

[29:23]  ⁷ tn Heb “pride of a man,” with “man” functioning as a possessive. There is no indication in the immediate context that this is restricted only to males.

[29:23]  ⁸ tn There is a wordplay here due to the repetition of the root שָׁפֵל (shafel). In the first line the verb תִּשְׁפִּילֶנּוּ (tishpilennu) is the Hiphil imperfect of the root, rendered “will bring him low.” In the second line the word is used in the description of the “lowly of spirit,” שְׁפַל־רוּחַ (shÿfal-ruakh). The contrast works well: The proud will be brought “low,” but the one who is “lowly” will be honored. In this instance the wordplay can be preserved in the translation.

[29:23]  ⁹ tn Heb “low in spirit”; KJV “humble in spirit.” This refers to an attitude of humility.

[10:14]  ¹⁰ sn The Assyrians’ conquests were relatively unopposed, like robbing a bird’s nest of its eggs when the mother bird is absent.

[10:15]  ¹¹ tn Heb “the one who pushes it back and forth”; KJV “him that shaketh it”; ASV “him that wieldeth it.”

[10:16]  ¹² sn The irrational arrogance of the Assyrians (v. 15) will prompt the judgment about to be described.

[10:16]  ¹³ tn Heb “will send leanness against his healthy ones”; NASB, NIV “will send a wasting disease.”

[10:16]  ¹⁴ tc Heb “and in the place of his glory burning will burn, like the burning of fire.” The highly repetitive text (יֵקַד יְקֹד כִּיקוֹד אֵשׁ, yeqad yiqod kiqod ’esh) may be dittographic; if the second consonantal sequence יקד is omitted, the text would read “and in the place of his glory, it will burn like the burning of fire.”

[16:6]  ¹⁵ tn עֶבְרָה (’evrah) often means “anger, fury,” but here it appears to refer to boastful outbursts or excessive claims. See HALOT 782 s.v. עֶבְרָה.

[16:6]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “not so his boasting.”

[48:29]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “We have heard of the pride of Moab – [he is] exceedingly proud – of his haughtiness, and his pride, and his haughtiness, and the loftiness of his heart.” These words are essentially all synonyms, three of them coming from the same Hebrew root (גָּאָה, ga’ah) and one of the words being used twice (גָּאוֹן). Since the first person singular is used in the next verse, the present translation considers the “we” of this verse to refer to the plural of majesty or the plural referring to the divine council in such passages as Gen 1:26; 3:22; 11:7; Isa 6:8 and has translated in the singular to avoid possible confusion of who the “we” are. Most understand the reference to be to Jeremiah and his fellow Judeans.

[48:30]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[48:30]  ¹⁹ tn The meaning of this verse is somewhat uncertain: Heb “I know, oracle of the Lord,/ his arrogance and [that it is?] not true; // his boastings accomplish that which is not true.” Several of the modern English versions and commentaries redivide the verse and read something like, “I know his insolence…his boastings are false; his deeds are false (NRSV, REB).” However, the word translated “deeds” in the last line is a verb in the third person plural and can only have as its logical grammatical subject the word “boastings.” The adjective כֵּן (ken) + the negative לֹא (lo’) is evidently repeated here and applied to two different subjects “arrogance” and “boasting” to emphasize that Moab’s arrogant boasts will prove “untrue” (Cf. HALOT 459 s.v. II כֵּן 2.c for the meaning “untrue” for both this passage and the parallel one in Isa 16:6). There is some difference of opinion about the identification of the “I” in this verse. Most commentators see it as referring to the prophet. However, F. B. Huey (Jeremiah, Lamentations [NAC], 395) is probably correct in seeing it as referring to the Lord. He points to the fact that the “I” in vv. 33, 35, 38 can only refer to God. The “I know” in v. 30 also clearly has the Lord as its subject. There are other cases in the book of Jeremiah where the Lord expresses his lament over the fate of a people (cf. 14:1-6, 17-18).

[49:16]  ²⁰ tn The meaning of this Hebrew word (תִּפְלֶצֶת, tifletset) is uncertain because it occurs only here. However, it is related to a verb root that refers to the shaking of the pillars (of the earth) in Job 9:6 and a noun (מִפְלֶצֶת, mifletset) that refers to “horror” or “shuddering” used in Job 21:6; Isa 21:4; Ezek 7:18; Ps 55:6. This is the nuance that is accepted by BDB, KBL, HAL and a majority of the modern English versions. The suffix is an objective genitive. The fact that the following verb is masculine singular suggests that the text here (הִשִּׁיא אֹתָךְ, hishi’ ’otakh) is in error for הִשִּׁיאָתָךְ (hishi’atakh; so G. L. Keown, P. J. Scalise, T. G. Smothers, Jeremiah 26-52 [WBC], 327, n. 16.a).

[49:16]  ²¹ tn The Hebrew text of the first four lines reads: “Your terror [= the terror you inspire] has deceived you, [and] the arrogance of your heart, you who dwell in the clefts of the rock, who occupy the heights of the hill.” The sentence is broken up and restructured to better conform with English style.

[1:4]  ²² sn Edom, a “brother” nation to Israel, became almost paradigmatic of hostility toward Israel and God (see Num 20:14-21; Deut 2:8; Jer 49:7-22; Ezek 25:12-14; Amos 1:11-12; Obad 10-12).

[1:4]  ²³ sn The epithet Lord who rules over all occurs frequently as a divine title throughout Malachi (24 times total). This name (יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת, yÿhvah tsÿva’ot), traditionally translated “Lord of hosts” (so KJV, NAB, NASB; cf. NIV NLT “Lord Almighty”; NCV, CEV “Lord All-Powerful”), emphasizes the majestic sovereignty of the Lord, an especially important concept in the postexilic world of great human empires and rulers. For a thorough study of the divine title, see T. N. D. Mettinger, In Search of God, 123-57.

[1:4]  ²⁴ tn Heb “and they will call them.” The third person plural subject is indefinite; one could translate, “and people will call them.”