PRIDE. This is a Sin very odious to God and Man, and which the Scripture condemns in a Multitude of Places. For what is to be seen in the whole Sacred History, but the Pride, the Presumption, the Vanity of Men overthrown? What else can can be seen, but the Humility, the Meekness, the Acknowledgment of Human Weakness, to be exalted, 1 Pet. v. 5. Jam. iv. 6. Prov. xxix. 23. Prov. xvi. 18, 19.supported, recompensed? God resisteth the Proud, and giveth Grace to the Humble. A Man’s Pride shall bring him low; but Honour shall uphold the humble in Spirit. Pride goeth before Destruction; and a haughty Spirit before a Fall. Better is it to be of an humble Spirit with the Lowly, than to divide the Spoil with the Proud.
Pride is also put for the Hardness and Insolence Numb. xv. 30.of a Sinner, in Opposition to Sins of Infirmity or Ignorance: But the Soul that doth ought presumptuously, the same reproacheth the Lord; and that Soul shall be cut Deut. xvii. 12.off from among his People. And elsewhere, And the Man that will do presumptuously, and will not hearken unto the Priest, or unto the Judge, even that Man shall die. The Lord treated the Egyptians with the strictest Rigour, because they acted with Exodus xviii. 11.Pride and Insolence towards the Hebrews: Eò quid superbè egerint contra illos. Job and the Psalmist have mark’d out Pharaoh by the Name of the Proud: Prudentia ejus percussit superbum, says Job; Humiliasti sicut vulneratum superbum, says the Psalmist. Isaiah makes use of the same Expression, to mark out the Destruction of Pharaoh; Numquid non tu percussisti superbumEzekiel xxxii. 12. And Ezekiel; Vastabunt superbiam Ægypti. The Chaldeans shall destroy the Pride, the Insolence, the Cruelty of Egypt. See also Nehem. ix. 16, 29.
The Scripture also often reproaches the Moabites with their Pride: It points them out, under the Name of Children of Haughtiness, or Pride; for so we translate what is said in the Book of Numbers; And destroy all the Children of Sheth. The Hebrew may signify, He shall destroy all the Children of Pride, or Haughtiness; which is confirm’d by this Passage of Jeremiah, which alludes to this in Numbers: Jeremiah says, We have heard the Pride of Moab, (he is exceeding proud), his Loftiness and his Arrogancy, and his Pride and the Haughtiness of his Heart. Compare Numb. xxi. 28. with Jeremiah xlviii. 45. in the Hebrew. See also Isai. xvi. 6.
The Pride of Jordan, is known in the Prophets, to express the Inundations of that River. See Jer. xii. 5. & xiii. 9. & xlix. 19. Zech. xi. 3. and what we have observed upon this in the Article JORDAN.
The Pride and the Proud, Superbia & Superbus, often represent Babylon and the Babylonians. In Isaiah, Inclyta superbia Chaldæorum, expresses Babylon: And Babylon the Glory of Kingdoms, the Beauty of the Chaldees Excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrha. Jeremiah, speaking of the King of Babylon, says, Behold, I am against thee, O thou most Proud, saith the Lord of Hosts; for the Day is come, the Time that I will visit thee. And the most Proud shall stumble and fall, and none shall raise him up: And I will kindle a Fire in his Cities, and it shall devour all round about him. See also Psal. cxviii. 21, 51, 69, 78, 85, 122.