The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee.
Pride
I. That the most despicable people are often the most disposed to pride. Edom is described as “greatly despised.” Small and disdainable as they were, they were nevertheless proud. Men of great intellect and lofty genius are characteristically humble. An old writer has observed that “where the river is the deepest the water glides the smoothest. Empty casks sound most; whereas well-fraught vessel silences its own sound. As the shadow of the sun is largest when its beams are lowest; so we are always least when we make ourselves the greatest.”
II. That pride evermore disposes to self-deception and presumption.
1. To self-deception. “The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee.” Pride is a wonderful artist: it magnifies the small, it beautifies the ugly, it honours the ignoble, it makes the truly little, ugly, contemptible man appear large, handsome, dignified in his own eyes.
2. To presumption. “Thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; that saith in his heart, Who shall bring me down to the ground?” The Edomites are here taunted with the confidence that they placed in their lofty and precipitous mountain, and the insolence with which they scouted any attempt to subdue them. A proud man always presumes on strength, reputation, and resources which he has not. Ah! self-deception and presumption are the twin offspring of pride.
III. That the most strenuous efforts to avoid punishment due to pride will prove futile. Two things are taught here concerning its punishment--
1. Its certainty. “Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle,” etc. If, like the eagle, they towered high up into the air, far up among the clouds, nestled among the stars, and made the clouds their footstool, the fowler of retribution would bring them down. All attempts on behalf of the impenitent sinner to avoid punishment must fail when the day for justice to do its work has come.
2. Its completeness. “If thieves came to thee, if robbers by night (how art thou cut off!), would they not have stolen till they had enough? if the grape-gatherers came to thee, would they not leave some grapes? “The spoliation which thou shalt suffer shall not be such as that which thieves cause, bad as that is; for these, when they have seized enough, or all they can get in a hurry, leave the rest; but it shall be utter, so as to leave thee nothing. Beware, then, of pride. (Homilist.)
Pride of heart
The prophet, having predicted in the former verses that God would accomplish the destruction of Edom by hostile nations, now intimates that their natural situation of strength shall afford them no protection. God is never at a loss for troops whereby to subdue those whose dwelling is in the high rocks.
I. Pride of heart is deceptive. The inhabitants of Edom imagined that they were perfectly secure in their elevated habitation of rocks. In this they were deceived.
1. Pride of heart deceives men in the commercial sphere of life. There are godless merchants in the world who are deceived by the pride of their heart.
2. Pride of heart deceives men in reference to their intellectual thinkings.
3. In reference to their moral safety. Their rocky places are no refuge against the retributive providence of God.
II. Pride of heart is presumptuous.
1. It presumes unduly upon the natural, temporal, and secondary advantages it may possess.
2. It presumes ignorantly, without taking into view the access which God has to men, notwithstanding their temporal fortifications.
3. It presumes unwarrantably upon the inability of men to achieve its ruin.
III. Pride of heart is destructive. “I will bring thee down,” saith the Lord. Man may make lawful things the subject of unlawful boasting.
1. Such men are often brought to humiliation by commercial failure.
2. By social slander.
3. By death. Their destruction is certain, lamentable, humiliating, unexpected, irreparable. (The Pulpit.)