Proverbs 16 · Passage · Humility
Pride Goes Before a Fall
Proverbs says that pride goes before destruction, and Daniel 4 tells how the king of Babylon was brought low until he praised the King of heaven.
The most powerful king of his age wrote a letter to every nation telling how God had made him feed on grass like an ox.
Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
- The passage
- Proverbs 16:18 to 19, Daniel 4:28 to 37
- Books
- Proverbs, Daniel
- Hold in memory
- Proverbs 16:18, Daniel 4:37
Summary
Proverbs states a rule of God's world in two lines: a proud heart comes before ruin. The book repeats it in other words and sets humility before honour. Daniel 4 shows the rule in one man's life. Nebuchadnezzar dreamed of a great tree cut down, ignored Daniel's counsel, boasted of the city he had built, and lost his reason until he acknowledged that the Most High rules. Restored, he praised the God who humbles the proud.
- Proverbs 16:18 sets pride before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.
- Proverbs 16:19 calls it better to be lowly in spirit among the humble than to divide the spoil with the proud.
- Nebuchadnezzar's fall came twelve months after Daniel urged him to break away from his sins.
- His restoration came when he looked up to heaven and acknowledged God's rule.
- Mary's song and James's letter both say that God brings down the proud and lifts up the humble.
The Proverb
Two lines of Proverbs 16 set pride and its end side by side, and the next verse gives the better way.
In Proverbs 16 and Daniel 4 Scripture gives a rule and an example of it, and both turn on humility, the lowly heart before God that Scripture commands and honours. The proverb matters to every reader because it describes a danger that comes before the fall can be seen.
The question the page answers is why pride leads to ruin and how God brings the proud low. Daniel 4 also shows that the humbling of the proud can end in restoration.
In the Hebrew the first line puts ga'on, pride (Strong's H1347), before shever, a breaking, and the second puts govah ruach, height of spirit, before kishshalon (H3783), a stumbling. The STEP Bible lexicon gives ga'on as "arrogance or majesty" and kishshalon as "a tottering, i.e. ruin", and kishshalon stands only here.
It is better to be lowly in spirit among the humble than to divide the spoil with the proud.The next proverb names the better choice, the company of the lowly over the spoil of the proud.
Nebuchadnezzar's Fall and Restoration
Daniel 4 tells the king's story in his own words, from a frightening dream to a song of praise.
The king passed from ease to warning, from boast to banishment, and from acknowledgment to restoration.
- The dreamAt ease in his palace, the king dreamed of a great tree and was afraidDaniel 4:4 to 5
- The wise men failThe magicians and enchanters of Babylon could not interpret itDaniel 4:7
- Daniel's counselDaniel told him the tree was the king and urged him to break away from his sinsDaniel 4:22 to 27
- The boastTwelve months later he praised the Babylon he had built by the might of his powerDaniel 4:29 to 30
- The sentenceA voice from heaven took his kingdom, and he was driven out to eat grass like an oxDaniel 4:31 to 33
- The acknowledgmentAt the end of the days he looked up to heaven and his sanity was restoredDaniel 4:34
- The restorationHis throne was given back, and he praised the King of heavenDaniel 4:36 to 37
A sequence of seven events in the order Daniel 4 tells them.
Daniel 4:30 gives the boast in the king's own words, spoken as he walked on the roof of his palace.
the king exclaimed, “Is this not Babylon the Great, which I myself have built by the might of my power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?”The king credits the great city to his own power and glory, and the sentence from heaven follows while the words are still in his mouth.
The Tree and the Stump
The dream told the king both his fall and the hope left to him.
The king saw a tree whose top reached the sky, with the beasts sheltering under it and every creature fed from it. A watcher, a holy one, came down from heaven and ordered it cut down, with its stump left in the ground and bound with iron and bronze.
This decision is the decree of the watchers, the verdict declared by the holy ones, so that the living will know that the Most High rules over the kingdom of mankind and gives it to whom He wishes, setting over it the lowliest of men.’The verse states the lesson the whole chapter teaches the king.
Daniel explained what the stump meant: "your kingdom will be restored to you as soon as you acknowledge that Heaven rules" (Daniel 4:26).
Pride in Other Rulers of Scripture
The prophets and the histories show the same order in Edom, in the ruler of Tyre, in a king of Judah and in Herod.
Obadiah tells Edom, safe in the clefts of the rocks, that "The pride of your heart has deceived you" (Obadiah 1:3). Ezekiel says of the ruler of Tyre, "Your heart is proud, and you have said, 'I am a god'" (Ezekiel 28:2).
But when Uzziah grew powerful, his arrogance led to his own destruction. He was unfaithful to the LORD his God, for he entered the temple of the LORD to burn incense on the altar of incense.King Uzziah of Judah shows the rule inside Israel, when his arrogance led him into the temple to burn incense.
In Acts 12 Herod received the crowd's cry that his was the voice of a god, and an angel struck him down "because Herod did not give glory to God" (Acts 12:23).
The Son Who Did Not Learn
Daniel 5 shows the next king of Babylon failing the same test.
On the night of Belshazzar's feast Daniel told the whole story again. He said that the king's heart "became arrogant and his spirit was hardened with pride" (Daniel 5:20).
But you his son, O Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, even though you knew all this. Instead, you have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven. The vessels from His house were brought to you, and as you drank wine from them with your nobles, wives, and concubines, you praised your gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you have failed to glorify the God who holds in His hand your very breath and all your ways.Daniel connects the son's feast with the father's story.
How Teachers Have Read Daniel 4
Jerome read the king's closing praise as the fruit of his punishment.
died 420 · Jerome
Jerome taught in his Commentary on Daniel that the king humbled himself once he understood why he had been punished.
"Nebuchadnezzar understood the reason why he had suffered in seven years' punishment, and for that reason he humbled himself, since he had exalted himself against God".
The Lowly and the Proud
Mary's song in Luke 1:52 and Proverbs 18:12 set the fall of the proud beside the honour given to the humble.
The New Testament carries the rule into the gospel. Mary sang that God "has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has exalted the humble" (Luke 1:52), and Proverbs gives the same two sides a few chapters after 16:18.
Before his downfall a man’s heart is proud, but humility comes before honor.The verse gives in Israel's wisdom the same order the king's story showed.
But He gives us more grace. This is why it says: “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”James sets God's opposition to the proud beside His grace to the humble.
Sources
Scripture is the Berean Standard Bible.
- The tagged Hebrew text of Proverbs 16:18, with Strong's numbers and morphology.
- STEP Bible, Translators Brief lexicon of Extended Strongs for Hebrew (Tyndale House, Cambridge, CC BY 4.0), entries h1347, h7667, h1363 and h3783.
- Jerome, Commentary on Daniel, on Daniel 4:37.
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