Arrogant (5244) (huperephanos from huper = over, above, + phaíno = shine) is the haughty person pictured with his head held high above others. The man who is huperephanos is the one who shows himself above. This man who because of his feeling of personal superiority, regards others with haughtiness. He is puffed up with a high opinion of himself, and thus regards others with contempt, as if they were unworthy of any social interactions. The noun huperephania is usually translated pride which is one of those sins which Jesus says proceeds out of a man's heart (Mark 7.22 = only NT use of huperephania). There are 5 uses of huperephanos in the NT... Luke 1:51 "He has done mighty deeds with His arm; He has scattered those who were proud in the thoughts of their heart. Romans 1:30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 2Timothy 3:2-note For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, James 4:6-note But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, "God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble." 1Peter 5:5 You younger men, likewise, be subject to your elders; and all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, for God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Barclay adds that huperephanos... literally means one who shows himself above other people. Even the Greeks hated this pride. Theophrastus described it as “a certain contempt for all other people.” Theophylact, the Christian writer, called it “the citadel and summit of all evils.” The real terror of this pride is that it is a thing of the heart. It certainly means haughtiness, but the man who suffers from it might well appear to be walking in downcast humility, while all the time there was in his heart a vast contempt for all his fellow-men. This pride shuts itself off from God for three reasons. (i) It does not know its own need… It walks in proud self-sufficiency. (ii) It cherishes its own independence. It will be beholden to no man; it will not even be beholden to God… (iii) It does not recognize its own sin… A pride like that cannot receive help, because it does not know that it needs help, and, therefore, it cannot ask. It loves, not God, but itself. (Daily Study Bible Online - scroll down) In his book New Testament Words, Barclay adds that... THE words huperephania and huperephanos are not very common in the NT, but they describe one of the gravest and most basic sins in human nature... It does not so much mean the man who is conspicuous and to whom others look up, as the man who stands on his own little self-created pedestal and looks down. The characteristic of the man who is huperephanos is that he looks down on everyone else, secure in his own arrogant self-conceit....We can see already that huperephania is an ugly sin; we must go on to look at it in two of its most characteristic manifestations. (i) Huperephania and wealth were apt to go hand in hand. Riches and possessions have a way of begetting arrogance and pride. Stobaeus preserves a fragment of a writer called Callicratides: 'It is inevitable that those who have great possessions should become inflated with pride; then that being inflated with pride they should become boastful (alazon); then that being boastful they should be-come arrogant (huperephanos), and think that there is no one like themselves' (Stobaeus, 85.15)... (ii) But huperephania can go even further than that. Huperephania can become the pride and arrogance which in the end despise God....Huperephania is the spirit which despises men and lifts itself arrogantly against God. No wonder Theophylact called huperephania the acropolis kakon, the peak of evils. This pride can come from pride in birth, from pride in wealth, from pride in knowledge, from aristocratic pride, from intellectual pride, from spiritual pride. It is described by Trench as 'human nature in battle array against God'. Alazon [word study] describes the boaster, the man who shouts his claims and pretensions so that all can hear. But huperephania is worse that that, for the seat of huperephanoa is in the heart. The blustering, boasting alazon is plain for all to see; but the huperephanos is the man who might well go about the world with downcast eyes and folded hands and with out-ward quietness, but with a silent contempt within his heart for his fellow-men; the huperephanos is the man who might walk in outward humility, but in inward pride. His basic sin is that he has forgotten that he is a creature and that God is the Creator; for the huperephanos has erected an altar to himself within his own heart, and worships there. (William Barclay. New Testament Words) NIDNTT adds that... The adjective hyperephanos (Hesiod onwards) usually means arrogant, proud; occasionally, prodigal. It also has a positive use (e.g. in Plato): magnificent. The writers of the classical period also used the noun hyperephania in the sense of pride, arrogance, contempt. (Brown, Colin, Editor. New International Dictionary of NT Theology. 1986. Zondervan) Huperephanos is used much more frequently in the Septuagint (LXX)...where we encounter 20 occurrences - Esther 4:17; Job 38:15; 40:12; Ps 18:27; 89:10; 94:2; 101:5; 119:21, 51, 69, 78, 122; 123:4; 140:5; Pr 3:34; Isa 1:25; 2:12; 13:11; 29:20; Zeph 3:6. Here are most of the uses, a study of which helps one discern the characteristics of huperephanos... Job 40:12 "Look on everyone who is proud, and humble him; And tread down the wicked where they stand. Psalm 18:27-note For Thou dost save an afflicted people; but haughty eyes Thou dost abase. Spurgeon: Those who look down on others with scorn shall be looked down upon with contempt ere long. The Lord abhors a proud look. What a reason for repentance and humiliation! How much better to be humble than to provoke God to humble us in his wrath! A considerable number of clauses occur in this passage in the future tense; how forcibly are we thus brought to remember that our present joy or sorrow is not to have so much weight with us as the great and eternal future! High looks: namely, the proud; the raising up of the eyebrows being a natural sign of that vice. Psalms 101:5 Proverbs 6:17. John Diodati. Psalm 94:2-note Rise up, O Judge of the earth; Render recompense to the proud. Render a reward to the proud, give them measure for measure, a fair retaliation, blow for blow. The proud look down upon the gracious poor and strike them from above, as a giant might hurl down blows upon his adversary; after the same manner, O Lord, lift up thyself, and "return a recompense upon the proud," and let them know that thou art far more above them than they can be above the meanest of their fellow men. The psalmist thus invokes the retribution of justice in plain speech, and his request is precisely that which patient innocence puts up in silence, when her looks of anguish appeal to heaven. Psalm 101:5-note Whoever secretly slanders his neighbor, him I will destroy; No one who has a haughty look and an arrogant heart will I endure. Spurgeon: Proud, domineering, supercilious gentlemen, who look down upon the poor as though they were so many worms crawling in the earth beneath their feet, the psalmist could not bear. The sight of them made him suffer, and therefore he would not suffer them. Great men often affect aristocratic airs and haughty manners, David therefore resolved that none should be great in his palace but those who had more grace and more sense than to indulge in such abominable vanity, Proud men are generally hard, and therefore very unfit for office; persons of high looks provoke enmity and discontent, and the fewer of such people about a court the better for the stability of a throne. If all slanderers were now cut off, and all the proud banished, it is to be feared that the next census would declare a very sensible diminution of the population. Pride will sit and show itself in the eyes as soon as anywhere. A man is seen what he is in oculis, in poculis, in loculis (in his eyes, his cups, and his resorts) say the Rabbins. See Pr 6:17. --John Trapp. Psalm 119:21-note Thou dost rebuke the arrogant, the cursed, Who wander from Thy commandments. Spurgeon: Thou hast rebuked the proud that are cursed. This is one of God's judgments: he is sure to deal out a terrible portion to men of lofty looks. God rebuked Pharaoh with sore plagues, and at the Red Sea "In the foundations of the world were discovered at thy rebuke, O Lord." In the person of the naughty Egyptian he taught all the proud that he will certainly abase them. Proud men are cursed men: nobody blesses them, and they soon become a burden to themselves. In itself, pride is a plague and torment. Even if no curse came from the law of God, there seems to be a law of nature that proud men should be unhappy men. This led David to abhor pride; he dreaded the rebuke of God and the curse of the law. The proud sinners of his day were his enemies, and he felt happy that God was in the quarrel as well as he. Psalm 119:51-note The arrogant utterly deride me, Yet I do not turn aside from Thy law. Spurgeon: The proud have had me greatly in derision. Proud men never love gracious men, and as they fear them they veil their fear under a pretended contempt. In this case their hatred revealed itself in ridicule, and that ridicule was loud and long. When they wanted sport they made sport of David because he was God's servant. Men must have strange eyes to be able to see a farce in faith, and a comedy in holiness; yet it is sadly the case that men who are short of wit can generally provoke a broad grin by jesting at a saint. Conceited sinners make footballs of godly men. They call it roaring fun to caricature a faithful member of "The Holy Club"; his methods of careful living are the material for their jokes about "the Methodist"; and his hatred of sin sets their tongues wagging at long faced Puritanism, and straitlaced hypocrisy. If David was greatly derided, we may not expect to escape the scorn of the ungodly. There are hosts of proud men still upon the lace of the earth, and if they find a believer in affliction they will be mean enough and cruel enough to make jests at his expense. It is the nature of the son of the bondwoman to mock the child of the promise. Psalm 119:69-note The arrogant have forged a lie against me; With all my heart I will observe Thy precepts. Spurgeon: The proud have forged a lie against me. They first derided him (Psalms 119:51), then defrauded him (Psalms 119:61), and now they have defamed him. To injure his character they resorted to falsehood, for they could find nothing against him if they spoke the truth. They forged a lie as a blacksmith beats out a weapon of iron, or they counterfeited the truth as men forge false coin. The original may suggest a common expression -- "They have patched up a lie against me." They were not too proud to lie. Pride is a lie, and when a proud man utters lies "he speaketh of his own." Proud men are usually the bitterest opponents of the righteous: they are envious of their good fame and are eager to ruin it. Slander is a cheap and handy weapon if the object is the destruction of a gracious reputation; and when many proud ones conspire to concoct, exaggerate, and spread abroad a malicious falsehood, they generally succeed in wounding their victim, and it is no fault of theirs if they do not kill him outright. O the venom which lies under the tongue of a liar! Many a happy life has been embittered by it, and many a good repute has been poisoned as with the deadliest drug. It is painful to the last degree to hear unscrupulous men hammering away at the devil's anvil forging a new calumny; the only help against it is the sweet promise, "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that riseth against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn." The proud. Faith humbleth, and infidelity maketh proud. Faith humbleth, because it letteth us see our sins, and the punishments thereof, and that we have no dealing with God but through the mediation of Christ; and that we can do no good, nor avoid evil, but by grace. But when men know not this, then they think much of themselves, and therefore are proud. Therefore all ignorant men, all heretics, and worldlings are proud. They that are humbled under God's hands, are humble to men; but they that despise God do also persecute his servants. --Richard Greenham. Psalm 119:78-note May the arrogant be ashamed, for they subvert me with a lie; But I shall meditate on Thy precepts. Spurgeon: Shame is for the proud, for it is a shameful thing to be proud. Shame is not for the holy, for there is nothing in holiness to be ashamed of. Psalm 119:122-note Be surety for Thy servant for good; Do not let the arrogant oppress me. Psalm 123:4-note Our soul is greatly filled With the scoffing of those who are at ease, And with the contempt of the proud. Spurgeon: And with the contempt of the proud". The proud think so much of themselves that they must needs think all the less of those who are better than themselves. Pride is both contemptible and contemptuous. The contempt of the great ones of the earth is often peculiarly acrid: some of them, like a well known statesman, are "masters of gibes and flouts and sneers", and never do they seem so much at home in their acrimony as when a servant of the Lord is the victim of their venom. It is easy enough to write upon this subject, but to be selected as the target of contempt is quite another matter. Great hearts have been broken and brave spirits have been withered beneath the accursed power of falsehood, and the horrible blight of contempt. For our comfort we may remember that our divine Lord was despised and rejected of men, yet he ceased not from his perfect service till he was exalted to dwell in the heavens. Let us bear our share of this evil which still rages under the sun, and let us firmly believe that the contempt of the ungodly shall turn to our honour in the world to come: even now it serves as a certificate that we are not of the world, for if we were of the world the world would love us as its own. Psalm 140:5-note The proud have hidden a trap for me, and cords; They have spread a net by the wayside; They have set snares for me. Selah. Isaiah 2:12-note For the LORD of hosts will have a day of reckoning against everyone who is proud and lofty, And against everyone who is lifted up, That he may be abased. Isaiah 13:11 Thus I will punish the world for its evil, And the wicked for their iniquity; I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud, And abase the haughtiness of the ruthless. The story is told of a young Scottish minister who walked proudly into the pulpit to preach his first sermon. He had a brilliant mind and a good education and was confident of himself as he faced his first congregation. But the longer he preached, the more conscious everyone was that “the Lord was not in the wind.” He finished his message quickly and came down from the pulpit with his head bowed, his pride now gone. Afterward, one of the members said to him, If you had gone into the pulpit the way you came down, you might have come down from the pulpit the way you went up.