"Proud, Haughty, Scoffer, are his names, who acts with insolent pride"
Pride is self-importance. I am right; you are wrong. I am superior; you are inferior. I am knowledgeable; you are naive. When a person has these attitudes towards the people they are around, then they leak pride. They do not usually submit to the directions, ideas, and action plans of those who they think are inferior, wrong, and lacking the information they have.
Since the fall, everyone comes with this idea that they are right. They have the true knowledge; they understand. But when this attitude is allowed to grow and become a deep-rooted conviction that they are right and there are no other possibilities, then this infects their attitude toward others and causes them to be and appear proud. They leak the idea that they see themselves as better than the others that they deal with. This is deadly to relationships. People pick this up and have a hard time with them.
In this proverb Solomon says that the person who acts with an inordinate amount of self-importance goes by three names: Pride, Haughty, Scoffer. Each of these is important as it reveals some new information about how they act, how people perceive them, and how others have felt the sting of dealing with them.
Proud
This is the standard Hebrew word for proud, arrogant. This is the person who always believes that they are right. They act and speak as though they are right. It makes them come across as though they are superior to others. People leak what they feel inside. So some people leak the ooze: "I am better than you." "I am right." "I am superior to you." When this is the aroma that surrounds that person, people pick up on it and move away from that person.
This is a great definition of pride: ascribing to oneself more than reality justifies.
Reality is the great water in the face to the proud person. There is a much bigger world out there than the world of your own creation. Has your presence and ideas and actions significantly changed the world? Did anyone notice?
People who are proud do not have an accurate picture of themselves or of their place in society and/or God's service. They have an overinflated idea of how important or significant they are.
Haughty
This is the Hebrew word yahir. This is the aspect of pride that focuses on superiority. This is the quality of “I am above, beyond, and clearly better than you. You are beneath me in a multitude of ways.”
Notice that proud is about how you see yourself – as more important, significant, and gifted than you really are. Haughty has to do with how you project yourself to others; that you are superior.
Scoffer
This is the Hebrew word lis which means scorn. This is the critic, the cynic, the mocker, the pessimist who has nothing but bad to say or predict for a competing or different idea. This is the person who moves to the position of sniping about something that they cannot change rather than really working against it or living with its reality.
This is really a form of pride because it puts you in the superior position; in the more important position in judgment over the other person, idea, or organization.
At this point it would be helpful to take an honest look at your reality. What have you actually accomplished? Where do your actual achievements place you within the society? What have you been sniping and griping about?
Is all of this really necessary? Get on with loving God and others and forget about all of this.
Until tomorrow,
Gil Stieglitz