The Hangover of Pride Text: Isaiah 16:6-12
Introduction: The Intoxication of Self
There is a sin that lies at the root of all other sins. It is the original sin, the sin of Satan, and the sin that brought our first parents crashing down. It is the sin of pride. Pride is the native language of the fallen heart. It is the quiet, and sometimes not so quiet, assumption that we are the center of the universe, that our thoughts are the measure of all things, and that our desires are the ultimate law. Every other sin, from lust to larceny, is simply a subsidiary of this great, cosmic treason. Every sin is a declaration of independence from God, and that declaration is always written in the ink of pride.
In our passage today, the prophet Isaiah continues his oracle against Moab. And the central charge, the defining characteristic of this nation, is its suffocating, all-encompassing pride. They are drunk on themselves. They are intoxicated with their own importance, their own accomplishments, and their own supposed strength. But the Word of the Lord comes to them as a sobering slap in the face. God announces that the party is over. The hangover is coming. And it will be a devastating one.
We live in a culture that is just as drunk as Moab ever was. We call pride "self-esteem." We call arrogance "confidence." We call rebellion "authenticity." We have built our entire civilization on the sandy foundation of human autonomy. We celebrate pride with parades. We teach it in our schools. We market it in our advertisements. We have told ourselves, over and over, that we are the captains of our own souls and the masters of our own fate. But this is a lie from the pit of Hell. And as we see with Moab, when God decides to judge a people for their pride, the collapse is total. The things they trusted in, the things that made them feel secure and significant, are the very things that will be taken away. Their laughter will turn to wailing, their songs to silence, and their feasting to famine.
This passage is not just a historical record of judgment on an ancient near-eastern kingdom. It is a spiritual MRI of the proud heart. It shows us the anatomy of arrogance, the consequences of that arrogance, and the utter futility of turning anywhere but to the living God for help when the bottom falls out. And remarkably, woven into this pronouncement of judgment, we see the heart of God Himself, and the heart of His prophet, lamenting the very destruction that His perfect justice requires. This is a terrifying and tender passage, and we must attend to it carefully.
The Text
We have heard of the pride of Moab, an excessive pride; Even of his lofty pride, pride, and fury; His idle boasts are false.
Therefore Moab will wail; everyone of Moab will wail. You will moan for the raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth As those who are utterly stricken.
For the fields of Heshbon have languished, the vines of Sibmah as well; The lords of the nations have trampled down its choice clusters Which reached as far as Jazer and wandered to the deserts; Its tendrils spread themselves out and passed over the sea.
Therefore I will weep bitterly for Jazer, for the vine of Sibmah; I will drench you with my tears, O Heshbon and Elealeh; For the shouting over your summer fruits and your harvest has fallen away.
Gladness and joy are taken away from the fruitful orchard; In the vineyards also there will be no cries of joy or shouts of jubilation, No treader treads out wine in the presses, For I have made the shouting to cease.
Therefore my inner being moans like a harp for Moab And my inward feelings for Kir-hareseth.
So it will be when Moab appears, When he wearies himself upon his high place And comes to his sanctuary to pray, That he will not prevail.
(Isaiah 16:6-12 LSB)
The Diagnosis: A Cancer of Pride (v. 6)
The indictment against Moab is laid out in verse 6, and it is repetitive for a reason. God wants to make the central issue inescapably clear.
"We have heard of the pride of Moab, an excessive pride; Even of his lofty pride, pride, and fury; His idle boasts are false." (Isaiah 16:6)
Notice the piling on of terms. Pride, excessive pride, lofty pride, pride, fury. This is not a minor character flaw. This is a terminal diagnosis. Moab's pride is not just a part of their national character; it is their national character. It is the air they breathe, the lens through which they see the world. This pride is so notorious that the prophet says, "We have heard of it." It's common knowledge. Moab is famous for its arrogance.
This pride manifests itself in two ways here: fury and idle boasts. The word for fury points to an insolent rage, the kind of anger that erupts when a proud man's will is crossed. The proud man believes he is entitled to have his way, and when reality does not cooperate, he flies into a rage. He cannot handle being told no, whether by God or by circumstances. We see this all around us. Our culture is filled with a simmering, entitled rage. People are furious that their utopian fantasies are not materializing, and so they rage against God, against nature, against reality itself.
The second manifestation is "idle boasts are false." The Hebrew literally says, "not-so are his boastings." Their big talk is empty. It's a bubble of self-congratulation with nothing inside. Pride always inflates. It always exaggerates its own strength, its own wisdom, its own importance. Moab has built its national identity on a series of lies it tells itself. But God is the great realist. He sees through the facade. He knows the boasts are baseless, and He is about to demonstrate that fact for all to see. Pride is, at its heart, a lie about who God is and a lie about who we are. God is everything; we are not. Pride reverses this. And God will not tolerate that reversal.
The Sentence: From Feasting to Wailing (v. 7-8)
Because of this pride, the sentence is pronounced. The consequences are directly tied to the source of their pride.
"Therefore Moab will wail; everyone of Moab will wail. You will moan for the raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth As those who are utterly stricken. For the fields of Heshbon have languished, the vines of Sibmah as well; The lords of the nations have trampled down its choice clusters Which reached as far as Jazer and wandered to the deserts; Its tendrils spread themselves out and passed over the sea." (Isaiah 16:7-8 LSB)
The first result of judgment is a universal wailing. This is not quiet sadness; it is a loud, public, national lament. The joy that came from their self-sufficiency is about to be replaced by a grief that comes from utter desolation.
And what will they mourn for? "The raisin cakes of Kir-hareseth." This is a fascinatingly specific detail. Raisin cakes were a delicacy, a symbol of prosperity and feasting. They were also frequently used in pagan religious rites. So Moab is mourning the loss of both its prosperity and its idolatry. The things that made them feel rich and the false gods they thanked for it are both gone. When God judges, He hits us in our wallets and our temples simultaneously.
Verse 8 explains why the feasting has stopped. The agricultural basis of their economy is destroyed. Heshbon and Sibmah were famous for their vineyards. The Moabite economy was robust. Their vines were so prolific they spread out to the desert and even "passed over the sea," likely referring to the Dead Sea. They were an agricultural powerhouse. This was the source of their wealth, the object of their boasts, and the foundation of their security. And God says that foreign invaders, the "lords of the nations," will come and trample it all into the dust. The very thing that puffed them up with pride will be the source of their deepest shame and loss. This is a fixed principle of God's government. What you make into an idol, God will make into a burden. The thing you trust instead of Him will be the very thing that fails you most spectacularly.
The Lament: Divine and Prophetic Tears (v. 9-11)
What follows is one of the most startling and profound sections in all of prophetic literature. The voice shifts, and we hear a lament over the destruction of Moab.
"Therefore I will weep bitterly for Jazer, for the vine of Sibmah; I will drench you with my tears, O Heshbon and Elealeh; For the shouting over your summer fruits and your harvest has fallen away... Therefore my inner being moans like a harp for Moab And my inward feelings for Kir-hareseth." (Isaiah 16:9, 11 LSB)
Who is the "I" who is weeping here? It is the prophet Isaiah, speaking for the Lord. This is God, through His prophet, weeping over the judgment He Himself is bringing. This is not the gloating of a distant, vindictive deity. This is the grief of a righteous judge who takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. God's justice is not at odds with His compassion. His holiness requires that pride be judged, but His heart breaks over the necessity of that judgment.
This should stop us in our tracks. We are often far too cavalier about the judgment of God. We can be smug and self-righteous, cheering for the destruction of our enemies. But that is not the heart of God. Isaiah's inner being "moans like a harp." This is a deep, visceral, resonant grief. He feels the pain of Moab's fall. This is the proper pastoral posture. We are to weep over the very sin that we must confront. We must hate the pride but grieve for the proud. This is the heart of Christ, who wept over the city of Jerusalem even as He pronounced its coming doom.
The reason for the weeping is the silence. The "shouting over your summer fruits and your harvest has fallen away." Verse 10 expands on this:
"Gladness and joy are taken away from the fruitful orchard; In the vineyards also there will be no cries of joy or shouts of jubilation, No treader treads out wine in the presses, For I have made the shouting to cease." (Isaiah 16:10 LSB)
The harvest was a time of great celebration, of shouting and singing. It was the culmination of a year's work, a time of plenty and security. God says, "I have made the shouting to cease." The silence is a divine act. He is turning off the music. He is ending the party. The joy that was rooted in created things, in the abundance of the harvest, is shown to be fleeting and fragile. True, lasting joy can only be rooted in the Creator. When we seek our ultimate joy in the gift rather than the Giver, God will, in a severe mercy, often remove the gift to show us our idolatry.
The Futility of False Worship (v. 12)
The final verse shows us Moab's last, desperate act, and its utter hopelessness.
"So it will be when Moab appears, When he wearies himself upon his high place And comes to his sanctuary to pray, That he will not prevail." (Isaiah 16:12 LSB)
When disaster strikes, Moab finally turns to religion. They go up to their "high place," the location of their pagan altars. They weary themselves with rituals, with sacrifices, with frantic prayers to their god Chemosh. They work up a real sweat. They are earnest. They are desperate. And it is completely useless. "He will not prevail."
This is the final bankruptcy of pride. Pride builds its own systems of salvation, its own economies, its own armies, and its own gods. And when the true God blows it all down, pride's last resort is to run to the false gods that it created. But an idol can't help you. An idol is nothing. It is a god you made with your own hands, a projection of your own desires. Praying to an idol is just talking to yourself in a different voice. It is the ultimate exercise in futility.
This is a profound warning for our own day. When our proud, secular projects collapse, and they will, the natural reaction will be for people to double down on their idolatries. They will run to the high places of political saviors, or technological solutions, or therapeutic nonsense. They will weary themselves in their sanctuaries of self-help and positive thinking. And they will not prevail. There is only one sanctuary where prayer is answered. There is only one high place that matters, and that is Mount Zion, and the heavenly Jerusalem. There is only one Mediator who can prevail, and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.
Conclusion: The Only Refuge
The story of Moab is the story of every person, every family, every nation that builds its life on the foundation of pride. It is a story that begins with boasting and ends with wailing. It is a story of prosperity that vanishes overnight. It is a story of frantic, useless religion in the face of righteous judgment.
The only escape from the fate of Moab is to deal with the root problem: pride. And we cannot do this on our own. To try to humble ourselves by our own strength is just another form of pride. "Look at me, being all humble." No, the only cure for pride is to be humbled by the gospel.
The gospel tells us that we are far more sinful and helpless than we ever dared to imagine. We are Moab. We are proud, boastful, and our fury rages against the authority of God. Our situation is utterly hopeless. But the gospel does not stop there. It tells us that God, in His infinite love, did not remain distant. He entered into our judgment. The Lord Jesus Christ, the only one who had no pride, humbled Himself, taking the form of a servant, and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.
On that cross, He endured the ultimate silence. The shouts of the crowd ceased, and He cried out in dereliction. He bore the full force of the divine fury against our pride. He was trampled down by the lords of the nations. His life was pressed out like grapes in a winepress. And He did this so that we, the proud, could be forgiven.
And God did not weep over Him in vain. He raised Him from the dead, and now He is the only true high place, the only sanctuary where we can go and prevail. The choice before us is the choice that was before Moab. We can continue in our pride, trusting in our own strength, our own economy, our own false gods, and wait for the inevitable silence and the wailing. Or we can humble ourselves, confess our pride, and flee for refuge to the only one who can save. We can come to the cross, where God's justice and mercy meet, and find that the God who weeps over judgment is also the God who delights to save.