Uzziah sought God during the days of Zechariah, who taught him to fear God. And as long as the king sought guidance from the Lord, God gave him success. … But when he had become powerful, he also became proud, which led to his downfall. [2 Chronicles 26:5,16 (NLT)]

When writing about pride earlier this week, I remembered the Bible’s stories of proud men who got their comeuppance. 2 Chronicles 26 tells of Uzziah who, as long as he “sought guidance from the Lord, God gave him success.” His mighty army defeated the Philistines, Arabians, and Meunites (who then paid him an annual tribute) and, under his rule, Jerusalem’s walls were fortified, wilderness forts were established, water cisterns were dug, and something like catapults were erected on the walls to defend the city. With Uzziah as king, Judah prospered and the powerful king’s fame spread “far and wide.” Sadly, along with prosperity, power, and fame came pride. Believing he was above the law, the proud king entered the sanctuary and usurped the high priest’s role by offering incense. When priests warned him about his sacrilege, the proud king raged at them and immediately was stricken with leprosy—a disease that meant the “unclean” man lived the rest of his life in isolation and never again could enter the Temple. All the blessings, accomplishments, and prosperity of his reign were overshadowed by Uzziah’s one act of pride, insolence, and arrogance.

It is in the book of Daniel that we meet the proud Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. He was so full of pride that he erected a 90-foot golden statue of himself and then demanded that people fall down and worship it as a sign of loyalty to him. When the king had a disturbing dream about a tree that grew tall and then was cut down, he called upon Daniel to interpret its meaning. Daniel explained that Nebuchadnezzar was the tree and would be cut down by losing his kingdom. He then would live like an animal until he repented of his pride and learned that Heaven, not man, rules. Although Daniel advised the king to acknowledge God’s rule and govern with justice, his words fell on deaf ears.

About a year later, as Nebuchadnezzar looked down from his rooftop at the majestic splendors of Babylon, he proudly congratulated himself on his mighty power that accomplished such great things. Before the words were even out of his mouth, a voice from heaven pronounced judgment upon him and the king developed what is known as boanthropy, a psychological disorder in which one becomes delusional and thinks they’re a cow. The high and mighty king was driven from society and lived and ate like an animal for the next seven years. It was not until the once proud (but now repentant) king raised his eyes to heaven and acknowledged that God is the ruler over mankind that his sanity returned and his kingdom was restored.

For forty days and nights, the Philistine giant Goliath had proudly sauntered out to taunt the Israelite troops. Dressed in his bronze helmet, coat of mail, and leg armor while armed with spear, javelin, and sword, he challenged them to fight. Calling himself the Philistine champion and Israel’s army mere servants of Saul, the arrogant warrior thought himself invincible. What the Philistine didn’t know (but David did) was that, in taunting Israel, the braggart had insulted the God of Israel. When the nine-foot Goliath saw David walk toward him, he was filled with disdain for the apparently weaponless youth. In his smugness and conceit, he never considered the possibility that the boy was armed with sling, stones, and the power of Jehovah. When David ran toward him, the giant never saw what hit him. What a humiliating end for the warrior! He was felled by a single stone and beheaded by a shepherd boy wielding the giant’s own sword! Goliath’s demise is a perfect example of the old saying that “pride comes before a fall!”

Pride leads us down a dangerous path and, as we’ve seen from Scripture, pride inevitably leads to humiliation. It’s not just kings and giants who are proud rather than humble and fail to acknowledge from whom their gifts come and to whom they should submit. All that we possess in the way of power, strength, riches, intelligence, possessions, ability, talent, and even health are gifts from God—and He can take them away as easily as He gives them! Let us be humble.

No matter how dear you are to God, if pride is harbored in your spirit, He will whip it out of you. They that go up in their own estimation must come down again by His discipline. [Charles Spurgeon]

The Lord detests the proud; they will surely be punished. … Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall. First pride, then the crash—the bigger the ego, the harder the fall. Better to live humbly with the poor than to share plunder with the proud. [Proverbs 16:5,18-19 (NLT)]

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There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected—a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised, and we did not care. [Isaiah 53:2-3 (NLT)]

Because we know little about the geography or politics of Jesus’ time, we sometimes miss subtleties in the gospel accounts. We know Jesus was from Galilee but what do we know of Galilee? Located north of Judea with the province of Samaria separating them, Galilee originally was settled by the tribes of Naphtali, Asher, Issachar, and Zebulun—all of whom failed to drive out the Canaanites. King Solomon gave twenty towns in the northern part of Galilee to King Hiram of Tyre either as payment for the cedar, cypress, and gold Hiram provided for the Temple’s construction or as collateral to cover later payments. In any case, Hiram later returned the cities to Solomon who then settled Israelites in them. When the kingdom divided, this region became part of the northern kingdom of Israel.

When Assyria defeated Israel, much of the Jewish population was relocated while those remaining often intermarried with the Gentiles sent there to repopulate the area. By the 7^th century BC, the region was known as Galilee with Upper (northern) Galilee known as the “Galilee of the Gentiles.” This was a rich and fertile region and, with the Sea of Galilee being the largest freshwater lake in the area, it was an ideal location for settlements and fishing. After returning from their exile in Babylon, Judean immigrants resettled the region.

By the time of Jesus, Galilee was a heavily populated area. Jesus was raised in Nazareth in Lower Galilee. Most, if not all, of His disciples were from Galilee and He spent much of his ministry preaching around the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee in towns like Capernaum and Bethsaida. It was in Galilee that he turned water into wine, gave the Sermon on the Mount, and performed miracles like feeding the 5,000, healing the centurion’s servant, raising Jairus’ daughter and the widow of Nain’s son, walking on water, and calming a storm.

What we 21^st century believers probably don’t know is that, in Jesus’ day, Judeans disparaged Galileans. Even though most Galileans were Jewish, the pureness of their ancestry had been diluted by intermarriage and Judeans considered them of questionable ancestry. The Galilean Aramaic dialect differed enough from Judean Aramaic that Galileans (like New Yorkers) were recognizable by their accents. It was Peter’s accent that identified him as a Galilean when he denied Jesus and it was their distinctive accent that caused Judeans to consider Galileans uneducated. One story in the Babylonian Talmud told of prohibiting them from speaking in the Temple for fear they might mispronounce something and offend God! In Acts 4:32, we find the Council amazed at the confidence with which Peter and John spoke because they were “unlearned and ignorant” men. It was their thick Galilean accents, not their words, that caused the incorrect assumption of ignorance.

Regional prejudices were as prominent in Jesus’ time as they are in ours and Judeans, especially Jerusalemites, viewed Galileans as uncultured peasants. “Galilean” was as derogatory a term as are “redneck” or “hillbilly.” Consider Nathanael’s surprise when Philip told him the Messiah was from Nazareth: “Can anything good thing come from Nazareth?” When Nicodemus dared to defend Jesus by pointing out He deserved a trial, his fellow Pharisees taunted him with their answer: “Are you from Galilee, too? Search the Scriptures and see for yourself—no prophet ever comes from Galilee!” Not only did their scorn prove their bias and prejudice, but it also revealed their own ignorance. The prophet Jonah came from Gath-Hepher, just a few miles north of Nazareth, in Galilee! Their bias also kept them from seeing how Jesus filled Isaiah’s prophecy of a Messiah in Isaiah 9 (repeated in Matthew 4:13-16).

Are we as judgmental as were the Pharisees? Do we make assumptions about groups of people based on pre-existing beliefs about their heritage, race, accent, attire, age, gender, religion, or disability? Many in Judea turned their backs on Jesus and the disciples because all they saw were uneducated peasants who spoke with a Galilean accent! Because of their prejudice, they continued to sit in the darkness in the presence of the Light! Let’s not make a similar mistake!

He went first to Nazareth, then left there and moved to Capernaum, beside the Sea of Galilee, in the region of Zebulun and Naphtali. This fulfilled what God said through the prophet Isaiah:  “In the land of Zebulun and of Naphtali, beside the sea, beyond the Jordan River, in Galilee where so many Gentiles live, the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light. And for those who lived in the land where death casts its shadow, a light has shined.” [Matthew 4:13-16 (NLT)]

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