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]
It is in the Talmud (a compilation of ancient Jewish teachings and history) that we find the legend of Honi ha-Ma’agel (the Circle Maker). After three years of drought in the land, the man prayed for rain. When none came, Honi drew a circle in the dirt and vowed not to leave it until God had pity on his people and sent rain. When God sent a light rain, the circle maker informed God that wasn’t the kind of rain for which he prayed and stated his desire for rain enough to fill the cisterns. When God answered with torrents of rain, Honi again complained that, “Not for such a rain I prayed.” After the circle maker informed God he wanted a “rain of goodwill, blessing, and graciousness,” God provided a rain that satisfied Honi. In fact, it rained so much that the people finally asked Honi to pray the rain away! While Honi’s behavior is a great example of chutzpah (audacity and impudence), I’m not sure it’s a good example of proper prayer.
Easily missed in Chronicles’ nine chapters of genealogy is Jabez (whose name meant distress or sorrow). Described as more honorable than his brothers, Jabez prayed: “Oh, that you would bless me and expand my territory! Please be with me in all that I do, and keep me from all trouble and pain!” [4:9-10] The Chronicler tells us God granted Jabez’s request and the man whose name meant distress apparently had a trouble-free life!
While both Kings and Chronicles relate the history of the Israelite monarchies and cover much of the same time period, they are quite different because they relate more than events—they relate Israel’s relationship with God. Continuing the nation’s history begun in Samuel, Kings was written for the captives during their exile in Babylon. Completed around 560 BC, the author shuttles between the kings of Israel and Judah until Israel’s captivity. Judah’s history continues to the Babylonian conquest and Jerusalem’s destruction; its history ends with Jehoiachin’s release from prison during captivity. Kings’ purpose was to explain how and why God’s children ended up in exile by showing how their kings failed to follow the law as written in Deuteronomy. They’d built shrines, worshiped in “high places,” made sacrifices away from the temple, defiled the Temple with idols, and rejected God’s prophets while embracing false ones. Reflecting the author’s decidedly negative viewpoint of both kingdoms’ leadership, only four of the thirty-nine kings following Solomon (all from Judah) got good reviews with another five kings getting mixed ones. Of the remainder—all “did what was evil in the Lord’s sight.” The book of Kings clearly answered the people’s question of why they were suffering in exile
After admonishing the crowd surrounding Him for being able to predict the weather but being oblivious to the signs of the arrival of God’s Kingdom, Jesus told a parable about getting right with God before judgment. As He was speaking, he was told about a recent incident in which Pontius Pilate ordered his soldiers to murder some Galileans while they offered their Temple sacrifices. On Monday, in “The Man from Galilee,” I wrote about the stereotypes Judeans had of Galileans; along with thinking them to be uneducated peasants, many Judeans regarded Galileans as trouble-making rebels against Rome. Indeed, Galileans had revolted after Herod the Great was named King, and, in 6 AD, another rebellion was led by Judas of Galilee. Indicating Rome’s expectation of armed resistance from Jesus and his Galilean disciples, a contingent (around 500) of heavily armed soldiers were sent to arrest Him in Gethsemane. Jesus even asked if they thought him a dangerous revolutionary. While turning the other cheek and loving one’s enemies was a revolutionary concept, that was not the kind of revolution people expected from a Galilean.
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.
