Isaiah 16

Pride comes in many forms. You don’t have to rule the world to have it.

It’s easy to see how great empires like Assyria and Babylon could become proud and arrogant. But the same thing can happen to smaller and seemingly less significant countries:

We have heard of Moab’s pride — how great is her arrogance! — of her conceit, her pride and her insolence; but her boasts are empty.  

- Isaiah 16:6 

Moab played almost no role on the world stage. It was conquered by the Assyrians as they expanded towards Egypt in the early 700s and eventually vanished from the pages of history. The only reason that anyone has heard of it these days is because of the Old Testament.

So what were they so proud of? Isaiah never says exactly. But he implies that it had something to do with their crops:

Lament and grieve for the raisin cakes of Kir Hareseth. The fields of Hesbon wither, the vines of Sibmah also. 

The rulers of the nations have trampled down the choicest vines, which once reached Jazer and spread toward the desert. Their shoots spread out and went as far as the sea.  

- Isaiah 16:7-8 

Pride is relative. The natural comparison for the Moabites wouldn’t have been the Assyrians. A people who grew the “choicest vines” would have had more money than some of the poorer farming and herding communities around them. Being more successful than someone else is all it takes to get a big ego.

Everyone struggles with pride to some extent. It’s part of the human condition.

My issues tend to come from work. The natural temptation for me is to take great pride in what I do. I cover the NBA for a living. It’s a job that a lot of people would love. People always ask about it when they meet me.

But here’s the problem. Pride makes you miserable because anxiety always follows right behind it. The two are linked at the hip.

It all comes back to identity and how I define myself as a person. If I think that I’m better than someone else because of something that I have done or some other characteristic about myself, then I am giving that thing (whatever it is) power over me. It’s a four-step process:

1. I take pride in X.
2. I need X to feel good about myself.
3. I worry about losing X.
4. I become anxious. 

In my case, if X is my job, then it doesn’t take much for me to start worrying about my job security. There have been a lot of times where I have worried about losing my job for no reason at all. It’s no way to live.

It's not that I couldn't get fired or laid off. Sportswriting isn't a very stable industry. But there's no point in worrying about something that I can't control.

That is what Jesus means when he says to build your house (read: identity) on a rock:

“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock."  

"And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”  

- Matthew 7:24-27 

You should be anxious if your identity comes from something you can lose. The only way to get real freedom is when you put it in something that you can’t.

Let’s go back to the Moabites. What happens to a people who define themselves by their crops and fields?

So I weep, as Jazer weeps, for the vines of Sibmah. Heshbon and Elealeh, I drench you with tears! The shouts of joy over your ripened fruit and over your harvests have been stilled. 

Joy and gladness are taken away from the orchards; no one sings or shouts in the vineyards; no one treads out wine at the presses, for I have put an end to the shouting.  

- Isaiah 16:9-10 

The Moabites didn’t have a great answer to that question. We know from archeological records that they worshipped a god called Chemosh. But they could not sustain their worship without a land to call their own. Without anything to define themselves by, they assimilated into the societies around them and lost their identity as a people.

The Jews survived because they had an answer. Their tribal identity wasn't based on something fleeting. Even in exile, they continued to worship their God as the Creator of the universe, and that worship sustained them and allowed them outlast their conquerors and their neighbors. No human being, or group of humans, is going to last forever. If pride is relative, then the comparison point for any of us shouldn't be each other.

The Assyrians and Babylonians might have had more reason to be proud than the Moabites, but it wasn't reason enough. Nothing than any man can do comes close to God:

Then the Lord spoke to Job out of the storm. He said: "Who is this that obscures my plans with words without knowledge? Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me." 

"Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone -- while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?" 

"Who shut up the sea behind doors when it burst forth from the womb, when I made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in its thick darkness, when I fixed limits for it and set its doors and bars in place, when I said 'This far you may come and no farther; here is where your proud waves halt?'"

- Job 38:1-11 

As Moab found out, pride comes before the fall. The only way to avoid the same fate is to take pride in God instead of yourself.