The Pulpit Commentary — Obadiah — Section 38

they were nevertheless proud. H is often, if not ever, so. T-he smaller the men tho 'more disposed to pride. The man email in body is oftln swollen out with ideas of the comeliness of hie person; the man email in intellect is the same. 'rhe men who rate themselves as great thinkers, scholars, a.uthora, preachers, a.re invariably emall- brnined men. Men of great intellect· and lofty genius are characteristically bumble. 'An old writer has observed that "where the river is the deepeat the water glides the smoothest. Empty casks sound most; whereas the well-fraugbt vessel silences its own sound. As the shadow of the sun is largest when bis beams a.re lowest, so we are always least when we make ourselves the greatest." 1 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 bis own. eyes. It is said that Accius, the poet., who was a dwarf, would have himself painted as tall and commanding in stature. In truth, it makes the man who is a devil at heart appear to himself a saint. Witness the Pharisee in the temple. 2. To preawmp- tioo. "Thou that dwelleet 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 resourcea which he bas not. Whilst he stands on quicksand he fancies himself on a rock. "Thou eaye.~t thou art rich, and increased with goods, and hast need of nothing; whereas," etc. (Rev. iii. 17). ·Ah I self-deception and presumption are the twin offspring of pride. III. THAT THE MOST STBENUOUlil EFFORTS TO AVOID PUNISHMENT DUE TO PRIDE WILL PROVE FUTILE. Two things are taught here concerning its punishment. 1. Its rertainty. "Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the stBrs, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord." Here these sinners are assured, by a bold hyperbole, that whatever attempts they made to avoid retribu- .tion, they would fail. If, like the eagle, they towered high into the air, far up among :the r,louds, 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 a.void 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 I), 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 e. hurry, leave the rest; nor such as grape- gatherers cause in a vineyard, for they, when they have gathered most of the grapes, 'leave gleanings behind; but it shall be utter, so as to leave thee nothing. The exclamation, " How art thou cut off! " bursting in amidst the words of the image, marks strongly excited feeling. The contrast betweeu Edom, where no gleanings shall be left, and Israel, where at the worst a gleaning is left, is striking (Isa. xvii. 6; -xxiv. 13). Retribution strips the sinner of everything; nothing is left but sheer existence, and that existence intolerable. CoNOLU5ION. Beware of pride, then. The primal cause of all sin, all pain, and e.11 woe to come, the great fountain-head of evil, is pride. It must lead to ruin. "Pride )goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." "He that is proud eats up himself. Pride is His own gle.ss, his own trumpet, his own chroniole, And whatever praises itself but in The deed, devours the deed in the praise." (Shakespeare.) D. T. Vere. 6-9.-God in retribution. " How are the things of Esau searched out I how are his hidden things sought up I All the men of thy confederacy have brought thee even to the border," etc. Man is essentially a dependent being. The ineradicable anJ. ever-operative sense of his dependence urges him to lean his being on some object fer Q~ADIAH, D  34 TllE BOOK OF OBADIAH, [l-2L