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The arrogant have dug pits for me, people who are not in accord with Your Law.  Psalm 119:85  NASB

Arrogant – Do you recognize arrogance when you encounter it?  You will probably answer, “Yes.”  But notice the connection that the psalmist makes in his poetic construction.  You know, of course, that Hebrew poetry does not rhyme sounds.  There’s not “boat-gloat-moat-wrote” development.  Instead, Hebrew poetry rhymes ideas, that is to say, one idea is expanded, elaborated, or nuanced by another idea.  In this verse, “arrogant” is developed with “not in accord.”  In essence, the poet is giving us a biblical definition of “arrogant.”  Our task is to see how this differs from our modern vocabulary.

Let’s start with the root:  זִיד (zîd), זוּד (zûd) boil, act proudly, presumptuously, rebelliously.^[1]  The form found in this verse is zēd.

Because the root form does not appear in the ot, its spelling, whether with middle yod or waw, is not certain. The verb appears only in the Qal and Hiphil stems, with no clear distinction in meaning between them. In the sphere of the physical, it means “to boil”; in the sphere of personality, “to act in a proud manner.” With its derivatives, the word appears a total of forty times in the ot. . . . The basic idea is pride, a sense of self-importance, which often is exaggerated to include defiance and even rebelliousness.^[2]

Now we need to know why the root appears only in the Qal and Hiphil.  The Qal is fairly close to the English present tense.  The Hiphil is usually considered as causative where the subject of the sentence participates in the action.  The important point is that this root involves the subject directly.  Arrogance is personal, and its expression is manifest in personal behavior.  Arrogance is never accidental or unintentional.

With this in mind, let’s reconsider the Hebrew poetic elaboration.  Those who deliberately attempt to laud themselves over the author, who attempt to cause him harm, are distinguished not only by their social behavior but more importantly by their defiance of God’s Torah.  What does this mean?  What characteristic of the Torah stands in opposition to zēd?  The answer, of course, is humility.  Why is humility so important, especially since it seems to be the opposite of the Almighty God whose status is anything but humble?  Humility is the behavioral display of finitude.  In other words, humility expresses my personal recognition and acknowledgement that I am not self-made.  In the West, we idolize the self-made man, perhaps not realizing that the very idea is idolatrous.  Not one of us is truly self-made.  We are the handiwork and engineering of God’s creation, direction, and intention.  Arrogance refuses gratitude—for existence, for ability, for community.  It idolatrously asserts that I myself am the captain of my soul.  As Nebuchadnezzar discovered, such is never the case.

Topical Index: arrogance, zēd, humility, self-made, Psalm 119:85

^[1] Wood, L. J. (1999). 547 זִיד. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 239). Moody Press.

^[2] Ibid.