February 7 Extra
“Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.” Ezekiel 16:49-50 NIV
Sod-Foot and Ball-morrah
The cheapest Super Bowl LV ticket available on StubHub on Thursday cost $5,975. The highest price on StubHub is $347,600 for a suite seat. On TicketSmart, the cheapest Super Bowl LV ticket on Thursday cost $6,569, and the most expensive cost $239,000. For a game that last 60 minutes, the cheapest ticket is $99.58 per minute. But since the ball is in motion only about 7 minutes of game time, the cost per minute of play is $853.57.
So, run right out a pluck down $853 for the one minute you want to watch. But do it now before the price goes up!
You say to yourself, “I would never pay that kind of money just to see a game.” But 14,500 fans will, and that’s only because COVID limited the number of fans who could attend. The rest of us support this economic gābah (Hebrew for “haughty”) with our televisions. It’s a cultural abomination, a blight on moral conscience that goes competely unnoticed.
How are we to evaluate this mania? Well, we might begin by noticing the connection between Ezekiel and Proverbs. “Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord; Be assured, he will not go unpunished” (Proverbs 16:5). The Hebrew for “proud in heart” is gābah. It’s defined as “. . . human actions and behavior which are regarded as religiously and ethically evil.”[1] Does this apply to something like a game? A Superbowl?
“Ezk. 16:50 sums up the entire list of sins committed by Sodom/Jerusalem by gbh and the synonymous expression, ‘they did abominable things before me (Yahweh)’.”[2]
Do you think maybe I’m stretching the point? After all, it’s just a game, right?
The usual nuance behind the words under discussion is pride or haughtiness. Of interest is the negative usage of this word in connection with some part of the human body. For example, pride is linked with the heart in: Ezk 28:2, 5, 17; Ps 131:1; Prov 18:12; II Chr 26:16; 32:25 (all with the verb); Prov 16:5; II Chr 32:26 (with adjective and noun). Isaiah 2:11; 5:15 and Ps 101:5 connect pride with the eyes. Proverbs 16:18 and Eccl 7:8 tie pride with man’s spirit, and Ps 10:4 with man’s “nose”/countenance. On a few occasions individuals are said to be guilty specifically of this sin of pride: Uzziah (II Chr 26:16); Hezekiah (II Chr 32:25–26); the prince of Tyre (Ezk 28:2, 17). Conversely, Isaiah speaks of the suffering servant who will be exalted (rûm), lifted up (nāśaʾ) and be very high (gābah) (52:13).
In the LXX the word is translated as hupsos or hupsēlos, but never as hubris.[3]
We’ll look at that odd fact about the LXX in a minute. Right now we need to understand the context of a Superbowl.
986 million people in the world live on less than $1 a day.
The growing concentration of the world’s wealth has been highlighted by a report showing that the 26 richest billionaires own as many assets as the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of the planet’s population. Between 2017 and 2018 a new billionaire was created every two days. 1% of the fortune of Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon, is equivalent to the whole health budget for Ethiopia, a country of 105 million people.
The Superbowl is only a game, but it is also a statement—a statement of values. It is a statement about what the culture worships, what it honors, what it is willing to support. Most of all, it is a statement of pointless affluence in the face of unimaginable poverty. It is our Sodom and Gomorrah version of what is important.
Now, why doesn’t the LXX translate this Hebrew word of condemnation with hubris? In fact, we might ask why there are only three occurrences of hubris in the apostolic writings: Acts 27:10, Acts 27:21, and 2 Corinthians 12:10. Why so few, and why is gābah translated with hupsos (James 1:9) and the derivative hupsēlos (Luke 16:15)? The answer is that hubris in Greek is trespass with overweening force and the infliction of insult or injury. It’s not haughtiness, human pride or social and ethical indifference. We can avoid hubris, that derogatory appelation, but still display hupsos, because hupsos is now socially acceptable. And there are no penalties. No ethics referees. At least not yet.
Topical Index: Superbowl, gābah, haughtiness, pride, Ezekiel 16:49-50
[1] Hentschke, TDOT, Vol. 2, p. 360.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Hamilton, V. P. (1999). 305 גָּבַה. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 146). Chicago: Moody Press.
